


Blacktop Blues

by reverseblackholeofwords, RubberSoles19



Series: Devil May Care [4]
Category: MatPat - Fandom, NateWantsToBattle - Fandom, Nerdy Nummies - Fandom, Supernatural, youtube - Fandom
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, a good ole fashioned ghost mystery, and lots of emotional angst, srsly they all need therapy, supernatural!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23514145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reverseblackholeofwords/pseuds/reverseblackholeofwords, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubberSoles19/pseuds/RubberSoles19
Summary: The truth is out there, the ugly, nasty truth, and this new-found family has to figure out how to deal with it. Some run, some fight, and others, well, they just try to survive. In the meantime, a new ghostly mystery rolls into town, and Matt - armed with a new ally and some rusted hunting skills - could use the distraction.In which: Matthew and Stephanie's relationship is on the rocks, and a ghost is haunting an old friend, providing the perfect distraction.
Relationships: Matthew Patrick & Nathan Sharp, Matthew Patrick & Rosanna Pansino, Matthew Patrick/Stephanie Patrick, Nathan Sharp & Jonathan Indovino, Nathan Sharp & Stephanie Patrick, Stephanie Patrick & Jonathan Indovino, Stephanie Patrick & Rosanna Pansino
Series: Devil May Care [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1646251
Comments: 119
Kudos: 44





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome one and all to Episode 2! You know, originally, we were only going to release chapters twice a week and then take breaks between episodes. Then y'all loved this series so much, and we developed a HUGE backlog of written content, we figured, why not just keep trucking?
> 
> So here you go. Enjoy!

Medina, Ohio  
March, 1999

Spring Break - a whole week for a kid to do whatever they wanted.

Matthew in particular enjoyed the week off from school to read at his own leisure, play his video games, and potentially go exploring for bugs or lizards, anything new and crawly. His new step-brother, on the other hand, didn’t seem quite as thrilled.

“But you get to go on a cool trip with your dad! I heard him talking to Mom about it last night,” Matt said as they lounged in the backyard on a beautiful Saturday morning. With a book lying flat on his chest, Matt glanced up at Nate who was spinning in the tire swing. They’d only just celebrated his tenth birthday two weeks ago, and Nate could already reach the ground to push himself, if just barely. “Aren’t you looking forward to it?”

Nate and John were notoriously secretive about their trips. That summer they’d spent most of their time at home. The Smiths and Patricks were still getting used to each other, figuring out what their new lives would look like as a family, so John only spirited Nathan away for one or two short day trips. But apparently this trip was going to last the whole week of Spring Break.

Matt had been a little surprised, he had to admit, when his mom hadn’t asked if Matt could go along, too. It had stung his pride a little, though he couldn’t say he necessarily liked the idea of hunting. Matt liked animals, liked to study and categorize them, but he couldn’t imagine actually killing anything. That didn’t seem like much fun at all.

“I like staying here better,” Nate spat as he kicked up dust trying to swing himself, his face screwed up in intense thought. “Can we get ice cream?”

But Matt knew he was just trying to change the subject, dangle the promise of a chocolate ice cream cone in front of Matt’s eyes and get him distracted, but he was determined this time to figure out why Nate hated the trips so much. He propped himself up on one elbow, lying on a picnic blanket in the grass. “Don’t you like hunting?”

“No.” Nate kicked dirt in Matthew’s direction.

“Then why don’t you ask your dad to take you somewhere else?”

“He says I have to learn to hunt.”

Matt scoffed. “Why? Why is it so important?”

“Because of what happened to Mom.” Nate hopped down from the swing and dropped onto the picnic blanket next to Matt, turning his attention to a trail of ants that had found the open bag of chips he’d brought from inside the house.

“Mom?” Matt slid the bookmark into his book and set it aside. “What happened to Mom?”

“Not your mom,” Nate said, rolling his eyes like this was obvious, but Matt never really heard Nate talk about his own mom often. In fact, he couldn’t remember once that he’d mentioned her. “She died, so Dad and I have to hunt the thing that killed her. He says it's our job now.”

Matt blinked his eyes a few times at the back of Nathan’s head. Sometimes that kid would say the strangest things, and Matt never knew what to believe. “I didn’t know your mom got killed. Was it a mountain lion or something?” He’d just read a newspaper article in the library a week ago about a girl getting eaten by mountain lions off a hiking trail, but he couldn’t imagine scrawny little Nate, even armed with a gun or something, hunting a big monstrous cat.

“No, it’s not like that.” Nate frowned at the ants, stole one of his chips from the bag, and blew a few ants off of it before sticking it in his mouth. “It’s scarier than a mountain lion.”

Now Matthew knew that Nate was making something up. “You’re lying. Your mom didn’t get killed by anything.” He picked up his book again, turned back to the page that he was reading, and laid back against the ground while Nate stood to his feet.

“You think you’re so smart! You think you know everything!” Nate glared daggers through his dark bangs when Matt looked up at him in shock. “You don’t know anything!” He kicked the bag of potato chips at Matthew and stormed back into the house.

Matt sat up, feeling guilt settle into his stomach. He never liked to make Nate upset, but he was still learning what set the kid off in the first place.

Sometimes Nate stared wide-eyed, into dark corners and down long hallways and went stiff as a board, like there was something only he could see staring back at him. Other times Nate would bristle up and turn sullen any time that Matt mentioned reading scary books about monsters and ghosts. And if Matt so much as joked about Nate being scared of the dark, the younger boy wouldn’t talk to him for the rest of the day.

But if Matthew was anything, he was inquisitive, and he didn’t back down easy. Matt got up from the picnic blanket, checked to make sure that Nate wasn’t watching from one of the windows, and stole around the side of the house to the garage. Neither of their parents were home from work yet, so Matt let himself inside quietly and tip-toed to the big master bedroom.

He rarely - if ever - intruded into the room even when his mother or John were in the house, but Matt couldn’t remember a time when he’d come inside while they were both gone. It seemed almost like a separate place from the rest of the house, the curtains drawn closed, the TV set on the dresser silent, and the closet door looming open just a few inches. Matt switched on the lights and looked around.

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. A laundry basket sat at the foot of the bed where Mary had been folding clothes. John’s big green duffel bag was leaned against a desk in one corner. The bed was made and tidy. Matthew slipped across the room to the duffel bag. He’d never touched it before, never had the chance. It stayed in that room except when John took it with him on extended trips, and as long as it was in his sight, it was off limits to anyone else. Matt unzipped it slowly and gasped as he peered inside.

Knives as long as his arm, strange necklaces with oddly-shaped charms, boxes and boxes of bullets that seemed heavier than Matt thought they should be, a large container of rock salt - none of it seemed to make any sense. These weren’t the usual things used in hunting animals, at least Matt didn’t think so. He couldn’t see someone taking down a mountain lion with a lot of salt.

He glanced around the room once more, dug through the drawers of the desk, even pilfered the closet for anything that might look interesting, but nothing else caught his eye. Then Matt thought of something else - a spare closet beneath the stairs that they used to store Matt’s toys and winter clothes inside. Mary had emptied it out when John and Nate moved in. She said that John needed the space and asked if Matthew wouldn’t mind moving his things into the basement. At the time, Matt had made a big fuss about it. He didn’t like having to move everything around for these strangers, but he’d quickly forgotten about the whole ordeal afterwards.

Now, though, that detail stood out to him, and Matt quietly raced down the stairs to the little room and tried the handle. It was locked. At first Matt thought his search might be at its end, but he recalled a set of keys his mother kept on a shelf in the pantry. It had a copy of all the keys in the house, just in case they lost one, so Matt grabbed it from its place and stole back to the little door. Feeling like a proper investigator now, he unlocked the door and peeked inside.

The key ring fell to the floor, and Matt covered his mouth with his hand. He pulled the cord to turn on the single bulb in the tiny room and illuminated a wall of more knives and other weapons along with pictures and notes and newspaper articles. The pictures weren’t of animals, though. At least not any Matt had ever seen. They were of monsters, hideous creatures, and some were even of spectral figures, almost humanlike. They looked so real as he reached out to touch the photos, but surely they were faked.

Nothing like that actually existed. It couldn’t.

Then he noticed a big, fat leatherbound notebook overflowing with things stuffed in between the pages. He flipped it open to a random page, one where the spine was well-worn, and a picture of a woman standing alongside John stared up at him, paper-clipped to that page. She was smiling, beautiful. Though Matthew was sure he’d never seen her before, her dark brown eyes were familiar. This was Nate’s mother, Nora.

He looked just like her.

Matthew’s eyes scanned the notes surrounding the picture, all detailing the events of one single night. Only there were gaps, places where writing had been erased, sticky notes taped over scratched-out bits of information. It seemed like a mess, but Matt could tell just two things for sure: John Smith knew that someone - or something - had killed his wife, and he knew that somehow whatever killed Nora Smith had left its hideous mark on Nate, too.

“What are you doing with dad’s journal?”

Matt’s whole body jumped as he spun around, dropping the journal to the ground where it fell open to that same page. Nate stared down at it, stared down at the picture of his mother. His face didn’t change, though. Matt expected to see sorrow, the tearful eyes of a child who had lost his mother. But Nate just looked angry.

“Dad’s going to kill you.”

Suddenly Matt’s blood ran cold at the thought of those long knives in the duffel bag upstairs or mounted on the wall of the closet, and he wondered how much Nate meant what he said. “You weren’t lying.”

Nate blinked, picked up the journal, and closed it. “Told you. You don’t know anything.” He set it aside and balled up his fists, his body shaking with anger. “This isn’t your problem!”

“Nate-”

“You should’ve just stayed out of it!” Nate swung his fists at Matt, hitting his arms as Matthew raised them to shield himself. Then he caught Nate’s wrists and pushed him back, but Nate countered with a hard shove that knocked Matt to the floor.

When Matthew looked up, fear stung in his chest. It had to be fake, all of it, or else…

He pushed himself to his feet and darted around Nate, up the stairs to their shared room. Nate’s footsteps charged up after him, but Matthew made it to the bedroom in time to slam the door shut behind him and lock it. Shaking, he sank to the floor as Nate pounded his fists on the other side.

“Let me in, Matt! I’m sorry!” There were tears in Nate’s voice, but Matt was too terrified to care. If it was real, if John really killed things like that, he was training Nathan to do the same thing. They were both killers. They were both monsters. Matt covered his ears with his hands and cowered at the foot of his bed as Nate kept screaming on the other side of the door, begging for his brother to let him in, let him explain.

But Matthew was too afraid to move.

* * *

Los Angeles, California  
March, 2011  
Twelve Years Later

The Brightside motel was baking in the summer heat, mirages lifting off the surface of the highway and only broken by the occasional passing car. Nathan Smith, wearing a tank top and shorts, was draped across the windshield of his 1982 Firebird, all black and gold and surprisingly clean, with a tanning mirror propped into place, his shades over his eyes, a tall glass of icy lemonade beside him, and one arm curled behind his head. Meanwhile, inside room sixteen, a war raged. Tempers flared as hot as the metal of the Firebird, and a few minutes after the yelling raised in pitch enough to alert the neighbors, the loser - Matthew Patrick - stalked out of the room with a huff.

Matt paced in tight circles, still muttering to himself and gesturing around, like he was continuing the argument. After a few moments of this, Matt dropped his hands and his shoulders in defeat before whirling on his brother. Nate raised a single eyebrow in response, and Matthew hissed, “What?”

Nate smirked to himself, shrugging and casting his gaze down at the front of his shirt where the Zelda Triforce symbol practically glowed in the sunlight. Matt, clearly still annoyed but with no real source to direct his annoyance towards besides Nate, stalked closer.

“Oh sure, you probably think she's right too, don't you?” Nate opened his mouth, but Matt didn’t seem to notice. “Well, I'm sorry if I thought that part - _this_ part of my past was dead, I certainly didn't mean to insult you by not happening to mention it!”

The last bit was directed back at the door again, and Nate shook his head, still grinning as he rolled his eyes. Matt stomped a few paces away. He wasn’t gone long, though, before he was back again, still shouting, “And another thing! No, no, I don't think it's fair to say I've betrayed your entire family by ‘keeping this secret,’ and potentially ‘putting them in danger’! It's dead for me, it's gone!”

Matt glared bitterly at the pavement. “I never wanted to be a hunter in the first place, and I certainly never thought I'd do it again!” He watched Nate expectantly then, waiting for some kind of argument, but Nate had tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and gone back to soaking up some sun. Somehow Nate managed to be even more irritating when he was happy as a little clam than he was when the world was falling to pieces and his only coping mechanism was lethal levels of sarcasm and those stupid sunglases.

Matt grumbled to himself and snatched up the glass of lemonade from the hood beside Nate, inches from dumping it over his head.

“You pour that on my car, you’ll be cleaning it for the next three weeks.” Nate opened one eye at him. “With your tongue.” Annoyed, Matt set the glass back where it was resting on the hood and stalked away again.

Nate sat up with a sigh, setting the mirror aside. He couldn’t help but snort as he watched his poor, lanky brother scratch at his head in confusion. “Dude, we've been in this crap hole three days, and the only places either of you have been that entire time is back to your burned-out house and into town to see the insurance agent.” Nate placed the palms of his hands together and then pointed the tips of his fingers towards his brother. “You need to go some place that has an oven, central heating, and your own laundry machine.”

Matt looked like he was pouting, like he did when he was twelve and was forced to share a room with the scrawny, obnoxious kid the cat dragged in. Then he slumped back to Nate’s car and stood a few feet away with his arms crossed over his chest.

He was all but tapping his foot in annoyance. “Yeah, and what about you?” He picked up the tanning mirror like it was a dirty sock. “I guess you’re doing just super, huh?”

Stretching his arms behind his head again, Nate leaned back across the windshield. “Hell yeah, now that I'm a free man!”

“Oh right,” Matt said as he rolled his eyes, sarcasm thick in his voice, “I forgot. Because you’ve only mentioned it every hour of every day since we’ve been here.”

Nate sat up again and drummed his hands on the hood excitedly. “Three days, my brother! Three days without once having to ask, ‘Did anyone else see that?’ I haven’t seen, heard, felt, or anything- _nothing_ that hasn’t actually been there in three days. I’m a new man!” He sighed contentedly, wiggling from side to side to get more comfortable. “And with Afton gone at last, I feel… lighter somehow. Weird, right?”

Matt raised an eyebrow down at him, though the gesture was more or less lost on Nathan at the moment. “Right, and after a lifetime of these hallucinations, you’re not at all curious as to why they stopped so suddenly? Cold turkey?”

Nate smirked. “Nope!” But Matthew could tell he was lying. Then, as if sensing the dark thoughts buzzing in his brother’s head, Nate lowered his shades down his nose. “Course, that doesn’t explain... You know, everything.”

He was pretty sure he could hear Matt sizzle when he said that. “‘Everything’? No, no, I'm not sure what you mean by ‘everything,’ Nate, would you care to elaborate?” He was so sick of everyone dancing around the truth of what he did - not Afton - what _Matthew_ did, what he hadn’t been strong enough to stop.

But Nate raised his hands as if to step off from the conversation, and it only made Matt deflate a little more. As sick as he was of the tip-toeing on eggshells, he was getting even more sick of himself. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to start a fight with you too. Just - seems that’s all I’m good for these days, pissing off everyone around me.”

Nate rested a hand on his chest, jaw dropping in surprise. He swung his legs over the side of the hood and completely pulled his sunglasses off his face as if offended. “Wait, we’re _fighting_? Matt, you should have told me! I would’ve paid more attention!”

The Older Brother Sideways Glare hit Nate right between the eyes, but he countered with his usual smug grin, cocky and humorous to the end. And it picked through the icy layer that Matt had been hiding under for three days. He slumped against the Firebird next to Nate, a grin on his face as he melted a little, and rubbed at his jaw in the one place where it wasn’t bruised from Nate’s mean right hook.

Nate felt bad about bruising up Matt’s face, he did. But, hey, desperate times, and all that… “Speaking of fighting, how’s the, uh…?” Nate gestured to Matt’s nose.

“Oh, uh,” Matt pinched the bridge of his nose gently. It was still a bit swollen but no worse for wear after a few days of living with a cold pack on his face. “It’s not so bad.” Matt cleared his throat as the familiar pang of guilt gnawed at his stomach. “How’s your wrist?”

Nate held up his wrapped wrist and shrugged. “Meh, mostly just a pain.” He watched Matt’s gaze move back to the door of their motel room. He could look so much like a kicked dog without ever meaning to. It made Nate’s chest hurt just to look at him, and that was really killing his good mood. “You two seriously don't have any friends from school or anyone in the area you could call? Really? No one?” He chuckled. “And I thought I was the anti-social one.”

Matt scratched the side of his nose and winced a little. He always forgot… But then an idea dawned on him. “Well, there is one person I can think of…”


	2. Come this Way Often?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blacktop is quite a bit longer than the last two episodes (unless you combine them) so expect longer chapters. But it's all good stuff!

The Roadhouse  
March, 2011

Down an all-but-forgotten stretch of pot-hole-riddled roadway outside a little town that he’d already forgotten the name of, Nate followed Matthew’s directions, and the longer they drove down this particular road, the more and more nervous Nate got. He knew where they were headed, and he didn’t know how or why, but somehow a little of his karma seemed to be catching up with him as they pulled to a stop outside a place whose only name had ever been the "Roadhouse."

The rusted chrome and wooden exterior, its paint so worn away the color was an indistinguishable bluish gray, had only the neon sign hanging in its front door to tell the newest arrivals that it wasn’t completely abandoned.

Of course a few old cars and trucks were parked around in the mostly-overgrown, loose gravel lot out front, but the vehicles themselves looked like they could’ve been part of the landscape there for over twenty years, each of them bedecked in similar stains of rust. Nate parked near the back of the lot where there was the easiest route for escape and grudgingly climbed out of his car.

“I thought you said you were out of the life,” he growled as Matthew got out behind him.

“I was,” Matt gulped, rubbing at his stomach. Between the cheap meals, sleepless nights, and Nate’s driving - Matthew’s stomach was in at least a dozen different knots.

Nate threw one apprehensive look over the Roadhouse and turned back to his brother. “And you know people here?” He jutted his thumb back towards it. “Matt, you know this is a hunter watering hole from way back, right?” Nate took a long deep breath. “Can’t you just smell it coming off the place?”

Matt rolled his eyes and patted Nate’s shoulder as he walked by him. He was at least a little proud of himself that there were things his little brother didn’t know about him. “Just- come on, punk.”

Shrugging, Nate followed him inside. He didn’t have much of a choice at this point. The interior was just as Nate remembered it, dark, smokey, crowded with people covered in tattoos and flannel. All of them watched the boys like they were stuffed pigs ready to be roasted over a spit - or maybe it was just Nate they were looking at that way. He couldn’t tell.

He flashed a few wide grins, even waved to a guy he remembered had threatened to knock all the teeth from his mouth next time he saw Nate. Matt seemed to note the ever-so-subtle notes of hostility in the air.

“I thought these were your people,” he muttered under his breath, and Nate shot him a quick glare, obviously offended. Matt always forgot the big generational gap among the hunters, not to mention that his little brother wasn’t exactly the best at making friends. “Well, you know what I mean. I thought you’d at least be cordial. What about that guy you waved to?”

Nate shoved him towards the emptiest stretch of the bar, and they sat with nearly a dozen glares burning into the backs of their necks. “Yeah, let’s just assume for the moment that everyone in here doesn’t like me.” He glanced over his shoulder and winced. “It’ll save time on the obituary.”

Matt failed to suppress a snicker just as another voice emerged from the back of the joint. They both turned to look as a four-foot-tall bundle of wavy-haired dynamite came barrelling in wearing heels that probably registered as weapons and an apron over her pink dress. She looked about as at home in this diner as a sugar plum fairy in the middle of a heavy metal concert. But that didn’t mean she didn’t also look like she owned the place - which, of course, she did.

“Ray Calvert, I thought I told you not to park around back! You’re in my spot again, and if you don’t-”

The moment that her wide brown eyes landed on Matthew, she froze in place. Nate turned his back, hiding behind his older brother as he felt ice run down his spine. But Matthew beamed, a light flickering on inside of him and shining through a smile so genuine it hurt - maybe because of the bruising.

Suddenly, the woman squealed with joy and flitted across the room to throw herself at Matt as he stood to meet her. As she flung her tiny self into his arms, he laughed loudly, holding her tight.

“Oh my God - Oh my God, Matthew!”

“Hey, Ro! It’s been way too long!” Matt carefully deposited her onto the floor again as she sprung backwards from him to take him all in.

“Look at you! You look great!” She reached up to pat his cheek, noting the subtle bruising. “Well, I mean, other than this. Hon, did you fall down some stairs? What happened to you? Oh- that’s right!” She hissed through her teeth, eyes widening even more in shock. “I heard about what happened, the fire. I’m so sorry! I hope you and Steph were okay…”

Matt hugged himself self-consciously then, that light inside flickering as reality came back again. He wondered just how much she knew about the fire. “Steph and I are both fine, yeah, but Ro-”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do for you two love birds, anything at all, you let me know!” Rosanna threw her arms around Matt again, hugging him tight and doing a happy little wiggle as she did. She always was the warmest person he’d ever met. “You’re family, after all!”

Nate spun around at that and leaned out from behind Matt. “Wait- ‘family.’” He looked up at Matt suddenly. “ _ She’s _ the one? The one we came here to ask for help? You’ve got  _ the _ Rosanna Pansino calling you  _ family _ ?”

The instant Ro saw Nate, her face turned very, very red, and Nate’s turned just as white. She took one step back from Matthew, one perfect eyebrow raised, her mouth cocked in a half-pout. “Well, if it isn’t Nathan Smith…”

Several hunters around the room stood at the sudden change in Ro’s tone, and Nate could feel every eye turn on him. One man in particular, tall enough to have to duck through the front door, with a spider web tattoo across the top and back of his bald head, stalked towards the three of them.

Ro’s gaze flicked over Nate, up and down, before she crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. “You little two-timing, roadkill maggot-infested… Ooh ooh…”

Matt’s eyes widened considerably. He couldn’t imagine what his brother had done to earn this level of righteous fury.

“Ro,” Nate raised his hands, “I-I know you’re mad. But listen-”

She gasped and actually stomped her foot. “Listen? Listen! To you? Oh, no, honey.” She shook her head. “I told you what would happen if you ever dared showed your face here again, you weasley, miserable, son of an infertile-”

With each word, Nate backed away until his back hit the chest of Spider Web Man. Nate looked up and gulped visibly before shivering slightly and changing directions towards the bar like he might clear it in one leap. When the man spoke, the air rumbled. “There a problem here, Ro?”

Ro waved her small hands and sweetly replied, “Oh, no, Jimmy, no problem.” Then, speaking to Nate with enough poison to drop a grizzly bear, “Just have to deal with a certain cowardly, lily-livered-! Ooh! You - you…!” She waggled her hands in the air around her head as she gave a frustrated scream. “You disgust me!”

Matt, who had been frozen in shock the entire time, seemed to finally catch up to the moment and interjected himself between Nate and the little dynamo. “Uh, so, Ro, it seems you’ve met my brother.” He offered a peaceable, if awkward smile, hoping to defuse her.

Suddenly Ro’s gaze snapped upwards to Matt as if something weren’t quite adding up. Nate watched her eyes narrow before settling back on him again. He even tried his best to offer a sheepish grin, but the whole innocent-by-association thing didn’t look good on him.

Matt smacked him hard on the back, and Nate glared at him. Smiling right back, triumph in that telltale sparkle in his eye, Matt went on, “Yeah, step-brothers since we were kids. Nate’s dad was a hunter, my mom was a cop. You get the deal. Good to know you’ve met the little scamp!”

“Yeah!” Nate’s false enthusiasm didn’t even convince him. “Super…”

Ro, still obviously furious, and now a little confused to top it all off, glared back and forth between the two of them like she was trying to do a lot of mental calculations at once. Only nothing was adding up.

Jimmy still hovered just over her shoulder, looming intensely, and Ro fluttered her hand at him until he turned, glaring at Nate, and took his seat once again. Then she started massaging her temples, eyes squeezed shut. “Then I guess…” Eyes opening again, she looked up at Matt. “My offer to you and Stephanie still stands, of course, but you…”

She whirled, only a few inches to turn towards Nate, but it was enough to send her golden brown hair flying around her shoulders. “If you want to stick around here, I’ve got some work for you! It’s about time you start cleaning up the mess you made last time you darkened my door.”

Both boys frowned at each other.

Matt was the first to crack. “What kind of mess?”

“Actions have consequences, boys.” Ro propped her hands on her hips again, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Only your brother’s, for some reason, are always deadly. One way or another.” She frowned towards the door like she was expecting those consequences to waltz right in. “Anyway, that’s my offer. Take it, or please, please leave it.”

Nate felt Matt watching him. If he thought that his little brother had been on the up and up while Matt was away, he was in for a serious wake-up call, which was honestly the last thing Matt needed right now.

Losing total faith in the moron who had just sworn to save his life.

“Well, I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Nate smacked his hands together, wrinkling his nose with a sigh. “Lead the way, el Padrino!”

A flicker of what Nate thought was humor - deeply suppressed beneath layers of obvious loathing - flashed through Ro’s eyes before she spun on one killer heel and headed for the door. “Jimmy, keep the place standing while I’m gone!”

Behind her back, Matt smacked Nate’s arm with a silent, “What did you do?”

But Nate just rolled his eyes and started after her. He was sure that Ro would explain soon enough.

* * *

Steph kept the curtains of the motel room drawn, the door locked and bolted. The knife that Nate had given her stayed at her side at all times as she paced the worn carpet floors, back and forth and back and forth. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she couldn’t work out the goosebumps crawling across her skin. Nothing seemed to calm her nerves.

She screamed when a loud knock at the door pulled her from her anxious haze, and she rushed to the door, peeping out through the small hole, before she unlocked it and threw it open. “Jonathan!”

“Steph, hi!” Smiling, confused, Jonathan blinked at her. “Are you okay?”

Steph leaned into the door and squinted up at him, her eyes still adjusting to the sudden light. “Yeah, I’m fine! What’s up?”

As Jonathan looked past her into the room, he frowned. He could sense the paranoia coming off of her in waves, and neither of the guys seemed to be around either. “Actually, I was wondering if you knew where Nate-”

“Yes, yes, I know where Nate is!” Stephanie grabbed Jonathan’s wrist. “Why don’t you come in, and we can talk about that?”

Before Jonathan could really tell what was going on, Steph dragged him into the room and slammed the door behind them. She started fumbling through groceries, searching frantically for something. Jonathan watched her knock over a sleeve of paper cups and mutter a middle-school curse word under her breath. “I don’t have my kettle, but I could microwave some tea for us, if you’d like some…”

“Steph,” his voice made her frantic movements pause, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She put on a big smile for him, nodding her head, but it slowly turned into a helpless, broken whimper. Steph dropped down to sit on the corner of the bed, her hands falling useless in her lap. Jonathan followed her, sat down at another corner, a respectful distance between them but close enough that he could be supportive.

Steph swiped the sleeve of her cardigan under her nose. “It's just - you and Nate were right… about me knowing and freaking out.” She pressed her hands to either side of her face, squeezing her eyes shut. “I mean, Afton was evil! That kind of real evil doesn’t exist, or it’s not supposed to. But he had his hands on my husband! He was here, in town!”

Jonathan leaned one elbow onto his knee and massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers. This was every hunter’s worst nightmare, the ones who still had people to protect anyway. If you could, you shielded the ones you loved - like Jonathan did with his parents. You never wanted them to know what you knew because knowing came at a price, and it was often your peace of mind.

Jonathan turned his head up, watching Steph through his eyelashes. “Afton’s dead, Steph. He can’t hurt you or Matt again.”

“But he’s not the only thing out there, is he?” Steph squeezed her own shoulders, practically shivering, here in the dark all alone. He couldn’t imagine where her mind might travel to. “What about other witches, or ghosts, or - or vampires? Are there vampires?”

“Not this far south,” he told her and then wished he hadn’t phrased it that way.

“See!” She covered her eyes with her hands, pressing down until colors burst among the black. A cloud of static was eating at the inside of her stomach and nothing - not deep-breathing, not yoga, not even her tea - would make it go away. “Only an expert like you or Nate, who are keeping up with these things, would know that! Matt wouldn’t know. How could he?”

Jonathan rubbed his hands together in thought. “Matt’s a better hunter than you give him credit for. John was - by every account - a real tool, but what he did manage to teach Matt stuck.”

He could go on for hours about the stories that Nate had told him of his genius big brother who solved most of their cases before John had any idea what the monster even was. In fact, there were times where Jonathan thought maybe Nate was just making it all up, but after seeing the research Matt had done, the sparse trails of information he’d followed to find Afton, he believed every word.

“Just because Matt’s not the typical hunter, doesn’t mean that he can’t and wouldn’t do anything to protect you. I think it’s safe to say that.”

Steph hugged her arms tight around herself again. “At least he had someone teaching him. You probably had someone teach you, Nate had his father... I feel like I'm just…” Stephanie gestured around, as if to emphasize how alone she’d been there.

“You feel like you’re up the creek without a paddle,” Jonathan offered.

Her shoulders dropped in relief, and she pressed her hands to the top of her head, lacing her fingers together. “Yes! Good Lord, yes.”

Jonathan snapped his fingers and leaned back, his arms spreading to either side. “Well, I mean, if you had just asked-”

Steph cut her eyes towards him, sharp enough to cut on contact. “If you say ‘I told you so,’ right now, so help me…”

“What? No!” Jonathan dropped his arms in disbelief. “I was saying, if you had asked me, Nate, or Matt, we would have shown you the ropes - at least enough to protect yourself.”

Blushing, Steph finally dropped her hands to her side again. “It’s that easy?”

“To ask for help? Contrary to what those two chowderheads might think, yes, yes it is.” Jonathan stood up from the foot of the bed, and he opened up the curtains again, letting in a little light and chasing off a few of those shadows. “It’s also just that easy to take a few steps to protect yourself and your family. And yes, I’m aware I sound like a commercial.”

They both laughed. It was easy to laugh around Jonathan. His smile was warm. His easy, self-deprecating manner could disarm anyone. It was no wonder that he’d managed to look out for Nate as long as he had, as frustrating and challenging as she knew Nate could be. Jonathan made people want to trust him, and from what she could tell, Steph didn’t think that was a common trait among hunters.

She got up again, went back for the paper cups, and filled them with water - her hands steadier, her breathing finally deepening. “Once again, Jonathan Indovino, you are the most helpful person in my life right now.” She turned back to him after she’d put the cups in the microwave. “So, where do we start?”

His eyebrows shot up as this, his smile quirking up further on one side. “Oh, you want to do this right now? Just jump in head first?”

Steph shook her box of teabags and shrugged. “Well, I’m already making tea, and besides, do you have anything better to do?”

Jonathan wasn’t sure what to make of her. Since the first time he met Steph, he knew she wasn’t just another civilian swept up in a case. She was a fighter, but he never could’ve guessed he’d end up adopting her instead of the other way around. He shrugged his shoulders and sank back down to where he was sitting before, his grin almost unbearably excited.

“Nope, not a thing. Let’s get started!”

* * *

A Jeep as red and bright as a maraschino cherry pulled to a stop about thirty feet from the road in the middle of nowhere, and that was saying something considering how much nowhere they were currently surrounded by. The Firebird parked behind her, Nate and Matt getting out as Ro hopped down onto the dust and sand and strode towards a cliff that ran alongside this portion of the road.

They followed a few feet behind her, and Nate whispered, “So, how long have you and Ro known each other exactly?”

“Uh, seems like forever really…” Matt watched her back, could tell she was straining to listen to their conversation, and it made him smile. “She’s a really good friend.”

“Sure, sure.” Nate picked at the rolled-up sleeve of his yellow and black flannel shirt. “It’s just weird that she never mentioned you to me before. If you two were so buddy-buddy, she would’ve figured out we’re brothers, right?” He was probing and maybe that meant, Matt thought, Nate was still the little brother after all.

Matt cleared his throat, dancing around the issue, “Well, in her defense, it doesn’t seem like you two really hit it off when you were around.”

Nate nodded, unconvinced. He had a feeling something was going on that his dear, big brother wasn’t telling him about, and that made him nervous. By then, though, they’d reached the edge of the cliff. Ro stood, looking down the twenty-foot face. Peering over the edge, Matt whistled, and Nate joined him, suddenly recognizing where they were.

There at the bottom, a pile of cars was stacked like pancakes, one on top of the next. Nate scanned the surrounding area. The woods behind them, the narrow stretch of abandoned road, the dessert beyond the cliff, but not much else. It didn’t make sense that all these people had wrecked off the same place.

He scratched his head. “Weird.”

“Haunted is more like it.” Ro pointed over the edge with one manicured finger. “Every car down there once belonged to a customer of mine. Folks who have been going to the Roadhouse, regulars who know this area, they pass this stretch of road, and they lose control. Their cars go right over the edge here.”

Matt rubbed the back of his neck as he turned to look back the way they’d come. “And they were all hunters?”

Ro poked out her lips in a pout. “The Roadhouse is the only destination on this whole road for a hundred miles. Of course they were all hunters.” No one else would be out there that far, that was for sure, unless they were very lost.

Nate shook his head, clicking his tongue. “Son of a ditch!”

He expected the others to laugh, but neither of them did. In fact, Ro looked like she might just push him right over the edge. Matt, a little humored by the hostility between the two of them if nothing else, pointed back and forth from one to the other. “Okay, spill it. What happened between you two?”

They snapped a terse, “Nothing,” in perfect unison and then glared at one another.

Matthew giggled. He’d never realized before how badly he’d wanted to see these two in the same room, not that he thought this would be the result.

Ro turned away from them both, annoyed at Matt for laughing at her and mad at Nate for just existing in her general vicinity. “Nate knows what he did, and he should know that means he owes me,  _ if _ his brains aren’t  _ completely  _ scrambled at this point.”

Peeking back over the edge of the cliff, Matt raised an eyebrow. “And you think these car wrecks are part of it? Maybe a ghost of some kind?”

“I would assume so, since it started back up, rather coincidentally,” her eyes slid back to Nate, “when he was last here.”

Another glare at his brother, another bashful look in return. This was getting Matt nowhere fast. “And what exactly did he do last time he was here?” Nate gawked, like he couldn’t believe that Matt would take Ro’s side in this, but Matt only waited for an answer, the sun bearing down on the back of his neck and the tips of his ears.

Nate kicked a few rocks over the side of the cliff, watched them skitter down. “Last time I was around, I… borrowed Ro’s car…”

“You stole my car, you mean!” Her voice turned to a whine then as she wistfully glanced upward. “My beautiful little Iso Grifo, and you totalled her! I never even got to say goodbye!”

Stunned, Matt turned on Nate who held up his hands as if Matthew shouldn’t be surprised. “Okay, so I was dick when I was fresh on my own. So sue me.”

Ro scoffed, turning her head up towards the sky. “I would have if you had anything worth suing over!”

“Okay, okay, let’s focus here.” Matt held up his hands as if to calm a pair of warring toddlers. “The deal is, if Nate’s going to stick around the Roadhouse he has to stop this - this…”

“Spectral Speeder,” Ro offered, still a little sour at the edges of her usual overwhelming sweetness.

Nate crammed his fists into the pockets of his jeans. Ghostly mysteries were never really his thing. If he couldn’t shoot it, stab it, or punch it, Nate didn’t want to deal with it. Matt was always better at figuring out why a particular spirit had their ectoplasmic panties in a wad. “Guess I'll just have to rely on my naturally good looks and can-do attitude to jinx my way to a solution.”

“Now you’re getting it.” Rosanna swiped her hands together as if washing them clean of the situation, and she turned on her heel, beckoning Matt to follow her. “Once you do, I'll have a nice, comfy cot for you. In the meantime, if you need any help, the respectable adults will be back home, not cooking alive under this sun.”

She looped her arm around Matt’s, pulling him away as he cast an apologetic look over his shoulder at Nate who was all but shooting smoke out of his ears. “ _ Chiao _ !” Ro called and hopped back up into her Jeep with one spry leap.

Watching them drive off, Nate waved with one hand at the retreating vehicle while reaching his other around to the back of his neck where sweat was already starting to accumulate. It was scorching, and now he was out there alone with a crazy ghost that liked to wreck cars.

He shrugged off his flannel, hung it around his waist, and headed for the trunk of the Firebird. He opened it up and started digging around for rope, knowing he had one from the last time he’d worked a case in a local “haunted” canyon. It had turned out to be a hoax, bunch of kids working together to make the town think some evil spirit in the caves was snatching people, but at least he’d gotten some good climbing experience out of it.

He’d need it. Slamming the trunk shut, Nate turned back towards the cliff with a sigh. “Nobody would know, nobody. ‘Who, Nate? The last I saw him, a ghost was sitting on him! Yeah, he'll be missed, that smarmy little prick. I miss him already!’”


	3. You Got a Hitchhiker, Bro!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up this morning and totally forgot that it was Friday! My sense of time is totally gone these days, so most of the time, I measure out my weeks in DMC updates. This is the only way that I can keep any handle on the passage of time, but hey, it's all a social construct anyway. But that being said, hope you enjoy the new chapter!
> 
> -Reverse

Los Angeles, California  
March, 2011

Steph sat cross-legged in the center of the motel bed with an array of journals, folders, and other loose papers splayed around her. Jonathan had handed over whatever he had, which wasn’t much. As far as Steph could tell, hunters worked based on very limited knowledge, accumulating what they could as they came across it, and Jonathan, while experienced, was still young. Even he still had a lot to learn.

She frowned down at the information around her and stood up on the bed, as if trying to take it all in at once. Jonathan watched her and dropped his arms to his sides from where he’d been using them to illustrate his point before her movement interrupted his train of thought. “What? What is it?”

Steph turned around in a circle. “It’s just that - nothing you’re saying makes any sense.”

“Steph?” Jonathan gave a nervous chuckle. “They’re ghosts? Monsters? Demons? Not much about these things ever makes sense.”

“Well, neither does your method of dealing with them.” She gestured around at the papers like they were the debris of an explosion. “Or excuse me, ‘methods.’ I mean, how many ways are there to kill a ghost?” Steph raised a finger towards him. “You can salt and burn the bones, right?”

Jonathan nodded, still not sure where she was going with this. “Yeah, that’s usually the go-to. If we can _find_ the bones, that is…”

“Exactly!” Steph raised another finger, like she was counting. “Because if you can’t find the bones, you can burn something else that might cause the ghost to linger, a specific item that they’re haunting. Or clinging to? Haunting is different, somehow.”

“Well, technically speaking, I guess,” he conceded, messing with his hair again. He always started messing with his hair when Steph began to ask too many questions. It was his “frustrated” tell, and even after only two hours, Stephanie knew it well.

He was going to go bald if she kept this up.

And Steph knew she should stop, give the guy a break. It wasn’t every day that someone asked him to convey the entirety of everything he’d learned in years of hunting in digestible, bite-sized chunks. The fact that he was humoring her at all was flattering enough. But Stephanie had to know. “And what if there’s no bones? No object? What if a ghost is just haunting a person?”

Jonathan dropped into a nearby chair with a sigh. “Then you get creative!” he snapped and shook his head, raising a hand slowly. “Sorry, it’s just - Steph, I told you, this isn't a science. Hunting is more of an art. You've got the basics, but sometimes you just have to improvise and see what sticks. Every case is different.”

“I just wish the ‘basics’ included a little more concrete information, less superstitious speculation.” She sank back down onto the bed, among the pages of these books and journals that uncovered just a part of some hidden world she’d recently been thrust into. It was enough to drive a person crazy. Picking up a book at random, she scanned her eyes over the page. “You guys do this kind of stuff all the time, but how many times have you ever had to…” She read directly from the page, “‘Summon one vengeful spirit to pacify another’?”

Jonathan tugged at one ear as he leaned forward and propped both his elbows on his knees. “I’ve never actually done that myself, it very rarely works, since it can be impossible to figure out whose spirit we need to do the job, and we can't just randomly bring more restless spirits around, that kind of defeats the point.”

Stephanie got up from the bed and walked away, almost frantic, like she needed to put distance between herself and the information. Once she’d pressed her back to the wall, she sighed. “How have hunters even survived this long? Most of your research is from 18th century manuscripts that probably weren’t even translated correctly, and the rest is throwing darts at a board and ‘seeing what sticks’?”

She massaged her temples while in thought.

Now that he saw it through her eyes, Jonathan felt something like embarrassment burning along the skin of his cheeks and neck. He’d never been proud of what he did. Come to think of it, he didn’t know many who really were. Most people hunted because they’d lost somebody, because it was less expensive than therapy, except when it cost them their life, but when they felt they had nothing to lose in the first place…

Jonathan looked down at the floor. With nothing to lose, it didn’t much matter what the end result was.

“I guess they've never really worked together - hunters, I mean. Most everything we've found has been from our parents’ generation, hardened old farts with nothing better to do but sit around and grumble about how it was in their day. How much easier hunting was, how few limitations there were, how you could survive on credit card scams and illegal firearms alone.” His voice took on a different edge as he said it, an edge Stephanie hadn’t heard since the RV. “Guess times changed, and they weren't interested in helping the new generation figure things out.”

He got up from the chair. Jonathan was like Nate that way, Steph observed. He didn’t do well sitting in one spot for too long. She could see how they got along.

“Yes, but I was talking about hunters, not the world in general.”

Finally he smiled again, laughed a little at her joke, but she could tell that he was still distracted - something else weighing on his mind - as he stretched. They’d both been at this for far too long.

They needed some fresh air, maybe some food. Steph checked her phone. “Wonder where Matt ran off to…”

Jonathan lifted one arm in the air and stretched to the side. “You could call him. Bet he’s with Nate.” When he caught sight of the glare that Stephanie threw at him, he winced and feinted back a little. “Sheesh! Put that away, that thing is lethal!” Her gaze softened, and Jonathan chuckled, hoping he hadn’t crossed a line. “Listen, I don’t want to get into the middle of anything-”

“Then don’t.” She dropped her phone onto the bed and walked to the bathroom where she turned on the sink and splashed some cold water on her face, anything to avoid Jonathan’s worried glances.

“But maybe all you two really need is a chance to talk things out?” He really did sound so sincere. She wanted to strangle him for it, and if he were any less of a sweetheart, she probably would.

Steph turned back to him, towelling her face dry. “I’ve been _trying_ to talk to him, but he won’t listen! He gets so wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself over the fact that I’m mad at him that he won’t even give _why_ I’m mad the light of day! He just needs to listen to me!”

Jonathan picked up her phone from the bed, held it out to her, practically begging, “Then call him! Look, I’m no couples therapist, but I have dealt with Nate for quite awhile now. And I happen to know that stubborn streak of his runs in the family. Practically gallops.” His nervous laughter bordered on hysteria as he thought about just how wide that stubborn streak could be, just how much of it he saw in Matthew’s wife as well. Then he added, softly, “But so does his sensitive side.”

Steph only snorted and turned away.

“Hey, I promise it does… somewhere deep down.” Jonathan stepped forward to the bathroom door and leaned against its frame, still holding out the phone to Stephanie. “Just call Matt, give him a chance to hear your voice without it being in an argument. I know he’s dying without it, and I know you’re dying without his.” He bit down on his bottom lip and sighed. “If there’s one thing this job teaches everybody, it’s that you lose people if you aren’t careful, sometimes even if you are. But it’s not always the monsters. Don’t lose Matt, okay?”

Her glare lingered a bit longer on him before she snatched the phone away with a sudden relent. “Okay, fine, but you’re not going to get me to admit that you’re right.”

Jonathan nodded. “Something else I’ve gotten very used to living with Nate.”

Ignoring his comment, Steph wandered to the window as she listened to the phone ring, nervously twisting a strand of her hair around her finger.

* * *

Back at the Roadhouse, Matt and Ro sat at the bar sharing two glass bottles of Diet Coke. Apparently Ro kept a few in the back just in case Matthew ever decided to drop by, and he tried not to cry at the gesture, being surrounded by hunters and all. But now, Ro was staring at him with wide eyes, her jaw dropping as he finished catching her up on what had happened with Afton - the _full_ story.

Ro reached forward and put her hand on his arm. “How... how can you be sure? Much less, how can you _think_ that in the first place? You’re not a - a monster, Matt.”

Matt rolled the bottom of his Diet Coke bottle around and around on the counter as he muttered in low frustration, “I can’t be sure, that’s the thing. But I know what it _felt_ like, where I was, what I was thinking, and I had already gone through it for a week. Sure, Afton was sucking on my soul like jumbo-sized Tootsie-Roll Tootsie-Pop the whole time, but that’s what he does. _Did_. He was a shtriga, not a - whatever could do _that_.” In the dim light shifting through the shades over the windows, Matthew shuddered and leaned more heavily against the bar.

A few days in a hospital, a few more cooped up in a motel with his wife who suddenly hated him, Matt hadn’t exactly had time to deal with… all of it. The week spent with Afton, the fire, the fighting - it was so overwhelming sometimes he thought he was going to break apart from the inside, just shatter into a thousand pieces. So he shoved it to the back of his mind, hoped it would stay there, or maybe disappear. But he knew that was wishful - maybe even deadly - thinking.

Ro wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and tuck him away somewhere safe, but she resisted the urge just barely. “Well, you’re right about that. Shtrigas eat, they don’t…” She glanced up at his face again. “They don’t possess.”

He visibly paled at the word. Ro knew what possession did to people, how it left them unable to trust themselves afterwards. It happened to hunters more often than anyone liked to admit, if they didn’t know how to protect themselves from it. If that or something like it happened to Matt, especially if he hurt the people he cared about because of it - Ro hated to think of it. “So, what do you think happened?”

She watched as Matt’s whole body stiffened, and he didn’t answer her, not because he didn’t want to but because he was too scared to admit what he really thought. Before he could even consider putting his thoughts into words, his phone started ringing in his pocket, and he pulled it out, muttering, “It’s Stephanie,” while staring at it like he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Well, answer it!” Ro shouted, smacking his arm.

Anxiety bubbling in his stomach, Matt bit down hard on his bottom lip before he answered, hesitated, and then shoved the phone into Ro’s hands. She glared at him, befuddled, before putting the phone to her ear. “Oh, hi! Stephanie!”

On the other end of the phone, Steph was shocked but nonetheless delighted to hear from an old friend. “Oh my God - Ro?”

Rosanna beamed in response. “Yes! Of course it's me, silly! Who else should you go to when you need a helping hand?” Matt listened to her giggle at whatever response that Stephanie gave as he continued to fiddle with his Coke bottle, shame burning hot in his cheeks.

“... yeah, Matt’s right here!” Ro started spastically smacking his arm, but Matt didn’t look up at her. “Actually, he and I were just talking about your plans for the immediate future.” Finally she reared back with her little fist and punched him in the shoulder, and Matt, wide-eyed in shock, finally looked up at her.

Ro smiled at him sweetly. “Well, you know, the Roadhouse has a few spare rooms in the back that I’m not using, and it’s been forever since we’ve gotten to hang out! You have to come stay with me, you have to! I’ll even cook for you!”

Stephanie laughed and glanced over at Jonathan who didn’t seem pleased that Matt hadn’t answered the phone. She hadn’t stopped twirling her hair yet. “Ro, that sounds great, really, but we can’t just-”

“Nonsense!” Ro spoke animatedly into the phone, gesturing as she spoke even though it was all lost on Stephanie. Matt couldn’t help but smile just a little. He’d missed Ro, a lot. “You pack your stuff right now, all of it, everything you have, and you tell that simple minded motel owner that you are moving up to better, brighter places! I expect you here by dinner! I’ll make your favorite!” she finished in a song-song tone.

But this was too much, Matt thought, and he didn’t want to impose. He opened his mouth to protest, but Rosanna was already cutting him off, a finger held up to his face as she continued, “... Stephanie, hun, I won’t take no for an answer, you have to know me better than that by now. Just - don’t worry about it! I’ll take care of everything! You just get your cute little butts over here!”

She paused again, listening, but with no intention of giving up the high ground. “Well, you tell Jonathan to put everything in his car. He knows how to get to the Roadhouse, and I’m sure you’ll be here in under an hour. Okay, I’ll see you!” She made kissing noises into the phone and passed the phone to Matt before Stephanie could say another word.

Ro was on a mission. He could see it in her eyes, and if he didn’t cooperate, there’d be hell to pay.

He put the phone to his ear, watching her with a ‘See? Are you satisfied?’ look on his face. “Hey, it’s me... No, I didn’t put her up to anything, I just - I don’t know, I came out here to clear my head... Well, it’s not like we can say no, and we don’t really have a better option right now... Yeah, I think so, too.”

Matt swallowed around the growing lump in his throat, his eyes burning again. “Do you - want me to head back and help? No - you got it?” His heart sank. “Okay. Um, be careful. Make sure Jonathan knows where he’s going. Okay, um, see you soon.” He hung up and stared down at the phone in his hands before quickly glancing up at Ro and away again, rubbing at his eyes.

Ro was, once again, dumbfounded. Tossing her hands into the air, she sighed, “Good Lordy! You two are in desperate need of a long weekend!”

Matt groaned, pressing the phone against his forehead. “Ro, please do not start playing matchmaker here!”

“Matchmaker? Honey, the matchmaker puts the two pieces together.” She gestured wildly at him, at the metaphorical mess that currently was his marriage. Then she winked, “I’m a baker, love. It’s my job to sweeten the deal!”

Sighing, Matthew set the phone down on the bar and looked at her, long and hard. He wouldn’t deny he felt like he was at a loss for what to do next, and if someone could fix this, anyone at all, Matthew was game. “Well, if anyone knows how to fix this, it’s probably you, and Heaven knows we could use the help.”

Ro was beaming again, the light from the windows making her all gold and rose tones. Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Matty.”

* * *

Nate checked the rope one more time where it was attached to the back of the Firebird. Then he paced back to the cliff’s edge, to the place in the dirt where there were two tire ruts, the same place where every single car had driven off. He peered down at the pancake pile of cars. They’d each hit right on top of one another, and some had rolled off down the hill a little farther. It was all too freaky to be coincidence.

So, he eased himself over the side and started repelling down, straining as he went. His sprained wrist certainly didn’t make it any easier, and there were a few times when his grip nearly failed before he managed to work around it, relying on his good arm instead. The closer he got to the cars, he could see that they were all makes and models, all obviously driven by hunters from what he could see. There was just a distinct look - an age about them. He pulled the EMF from his back pocket and swept it away from the cliff wall, over the wreckage, but the machine stayed dark.

“Weird, especially for a ghost car,” he grumbled. Then grimacing, he muttered, “Yup, I’ve already started talking to myself. That’s a good sign, just peachy.” He shook his head. “Shut up.”

He repelled to the bottom and started searching around. Most of the cars and trucks that had found themselves down here had been cleaned out and picked through long ago. Most hunters couldn’t go two minutes without their stash of weapons, so if Nate had to guess, they probably did the same thing he had and climbed down. Even down here among the cars, Nate didn’t get anything on his reader, just a lot of silence.

Nate picked through broken glass, the glove boxes of whatever cars he could squirm his way into, even tried to spy the car at the bottom of the pile, but it was so buried by the other vehicles and by years of tall grass and bushes sprouting up among the twisted metal, there was really no use. Nate took a break to drink some of the water he’d brought down with him and watched his surroundings for signs of anything suspicious.

Then, satisfied that he probably wasn’t going to find much else and after resting his wrist for a while, Nate climbed back up, flopping down on the cliff’s edge and breathing heavily for a few moments. After he caught his breath, he sat up, dangling his legs over the edge, and surveyed the view in front of him.

Now that he wasn’t looking for clues or the signs of a ghost car, it was nice really, just to sit for a bit and enjoy the desert as the sun began to set. He hadn’t had a peaceful moment to himself in - well, he didn’t know how long.

The moment was abruptly ended, however, by the sound of his phone ringing from the hood of the car. Nate groaned and pushed himself up. When he reached the Firebird, he snagged up his phone while he untied the rope from around his waist. “Go for broke,” he answered.

He could hear Jonathan roll his eyes. _"Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for an hour."_

Nate fumbled with the knot and frowned. “I got, uh, roped into doing a favor for Ro.” He smiled at his own joke, silently proud of himself.

Jonathan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he pressed the phone between his ear and his shoulder, reaching for his drink. “Not a surprise. Oh, speaking of, Steph and I are headed that way now. Apparently Ro has a place for them to crash.”

Through the phone, Nate heard Steph’s voice, _“Where is Matt, by the way? He’s gone silent. We tried calling to let them know we weren’t far.”_

“Don’t know.” Once Nate finally managed to get himself untied, he looped the rope around his arm and untied the other end from the Firebird. “He and Ro went back to the Roadhouse without me.”

He heard her sigh, and he could practically see her shaking her head. _“Of course, what else would he be doing besides sitting around and talking?”_

“Um, is everything okay?” Nate asked, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. He’d mostly managed to dodge the rising marital issues back at the motel, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to avoid them for long if this kept up.

Jonathan cleared his throat and told Steph, “It’s okay. I’m sure they were just figuring some stuff out.”

“Oh, he’ll talk to Ro for hours! So glad _I_ married him!” Steph growled, and Nate held the phone away from his ear as he dropped the rope into the trunk and shut it.

In the distance, he heard another car approaching, and he turned in that direction, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Hey, I think I see you guys. Why don’t you slow down Evil Kenevil? Where’s the… rush?” Something ugly settled in the pit of Nate’s stomach then as he started to work some very quick mental math.

“Smooth,” Jonathan muttered to Nate, and then again to Steph, “Calm down, he’s just-”

Suddenly Jonathan’s voice disappeared in a wave of static, and Nate’s heart rate spiked. “Jonathan? Jonathan? Are you there?”

“Nate? Did I lose you?” Jonathan pulled his phone away from his face and looked at it. The screen glitched wildly.

Stephanie was too distracted by her own thoughts to notice the noise of growling static coming from the phone, or the radio that crackled to life. “You know, Jonathan, I just wish, for one moment, Matt was a little more like you, you know? Just a little! Then maybe he’d actually pull his head out of his butt and talk to me!” She growled and leaned her head back against the seat just as the car began to speed up, lurching to one side like it was trying to run off the road. Her head snapped up again. “Um, Jonathan? What are you doing?”

“Not this!” he shouted as he fought to regain control of the car. By now his heart was pounding, something was dangerously wrong, and the more that he tried to get the car back onto the road, the more he realized he was all but helpless. The car accelerated. Jonathan slammed on the brakes. Nothing. “Brakes are out! Steering isn’t working!”

Nate stood by his car, frozen stock still and unable to do anything to help them. “Jonathan, slow down! Jonathan!” But it was obvious that either Jonathan couldn’t hear him or he couldn’t stop the car or both. The EMF reader in Nate’s back pocket screamed to life as Nate gripped the phone tight. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

When Jonathan looked at Stephanie, her white-knuckle grip on the door and arm rest, he could see terror in her eyes. The car bumped along on the uneven ground beside the road, rattling like it might fall apart at any moment at the speed they were going. Sparse forest quickly turned into a clearing, and at the edge of the clearing, Jonathan could see Nate standing beside his car.

And he could also see a sudden, steep drop.

Nate watched the car make one last jerk, its direction changing to aim right at him, and he threw himself out of the way just as Jonathan’s car collided with the Firebird’s rear bumper at an angle. Both cars spun in the dirt near the edge of the cliff and ground to a stop. Curled in the fetal position a few yards away, Nate winced at the pain in his injured wrist as he sat up, running for Jonathan’s car to see if he and Steph were okay.

He opened the passenger-side door and squatted down beside Stephanie who was still frozen in shock. Nate reached up to take her arm. “Hey, you okay? Are you hurt?”

Steph blinked a few times at him, like she was trying to get her eyes to focus, and then as soon as they did, they widened. And she pointed over Nate’s shoulder. “Look out!”

Nate spun around as the headlights of the ghost car swept over them, its engine revving. Screaming, Nate turned back to Stephanie. “Time to go! Go, go, go!” He unbuckled her seat belt, took her arm, and half-lifted her from the vehicle as the ghost car charged at them. It slammed into the back of Jonathan’s car, pushed it forward and over the edge of the cliff, before the ghost car itself disappeared into the air over the desert.

The moment the dust had cleared, Nate raised his head and scanned the clearing for Jonathan. At first he didn’t see him - panic shooting through his veins at the thought that maybe he was still in the car when it went over - but then an oddly-shaped lump in the dirt groaned and rolled over onto its back. Nate breathed a sigh of relief as Jonathan spat dirt from his mouth and sat up.

Stunned, they all limped to the edge of the cliff together. Jonathan’s car had hit the top of the pile and rolled forward onto the ground below. It’s tires were still spinning where it tipped to one side. Nate shook his head, whispering softly but with feeling, “Son of a ditch.”

And Jonathan smacked the back of his head.


	4. Hot Asphalt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The drama continues!

The Roadhouse Desert   
March, 2011

By the time Nate climbed back down the cliff and fished their stuff out of Jonathan’s car, night had fallen, and they arrived at the Roadhouse after almost everyone else had left. The windows glowed through the trees as they approached, quaint in a way, despite its rough edges. Of course, it wasn’t exactly home, but it would do. They were all too exhausted to be picky.

They dragged themselves inside, and the moment they squeezed through the door, Matthew scooped his wife up in his arms, relief flooding his chest. “Stephanie! God, I was so worried. Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

Steph didn’t quite return the embrace, her eyes cast down at the rough wood floors. “It wasn’t so bad. I’m fine, just a little stiff.”

Heart sinking once again, Matt set Steph down on her feet again and retreated a step. Something had come between them, and among the long list of reasons that Matthew could think of, he wasn’t sure which one had driven them so far apart, which one had been the final straw. But now his wife couldn’t even look him in the eye, and it hurt so much worse than all of his many healing injuries.

“Steph… I was - I was really scared.”

“Well, you don’t have to be.” She rubbed her arm where she’d pulled some muscles in the initial wreck, hanging on so tight her muscles were as stiff as stone. More than anything she just wanted to sleep, pretend her whole life hadn’t been turned upside down once again. “I’m fine.”

Quickly deflecting Matt’s next words, Steph side-stepped him and stretched her arms out towards Rosanna who had just hopped down off one of the barstools. “It’s been too long,” Steph said as Ro wrapped her up in a tight hug, swaying them both from side to side as she tried to grin around the palpable awkwardness in the air.

“Steph!” Ro took a step back to look her over. “You look… great, considering everything you’ve been through lately. You poor dear!” She cupped Stephanie’s face between her hands and batted her long eyelashes up at her old friend. “Honey, just you wait till I get some good food in you. You’ll be a brand new lady again!”

Stephanie gave the smallest of laughs, still keeping her eyes down. “Thanks, it’s been a long week… couple of weeks, I mean.” She tucked some of her hair away behind her ear. She felt bad for intruding on Ro, after all, even though she knew that Ro would never turn a friend away. But this - this place, these people, the ghosts, the danger - it was too much.

Ro took her arm and looped it around hers. “Well don’t think about that now. I just put the kettle on, and you need a nice warm bath. I just got some new bath bombs, and you  _ have  _ to try one of them!” Ro cast one last worried glance at Matthew as she led Stephanie towards the back of the Roadhouse where her rooms were. Steph leaned against her, and she never once looked back.

Matthew could’ve crawled under a rock. Guilt and sadness and anger swirling, he turned back to his brother and shoved at Nate’s chest. His voice broke as he demanded, “What the heck happened, huh? A ghost you unleashed tried to kill my wife? Again?” He was so tired, so torn up inside, he couldn’t care that his anger was misplaced.

Nate staggered back a step, too shocked and too weary to even make a defense for himself. Jonathan stepped in, an arm up to block Matt from taking another step closer. “Hey, hey! Look, everyone is fine, alright?” he said softly but forcefully. “That’s all that matters. We can figure the rest out later after some sleep and time to clear our heads.” 

Jonathan turned, just enough to peer at Nate behind him. His partner looked too exhausted to care anymore. So Jonathan turned his gaze back to Matt. “I know you’re dealing with a lot right now, but don’t take it out on him, okay? He got Steph out of the car before it went over the edge. We’re alive - she’s alive thanks to him. That’s all that matters.”

Matt ground his teeth together. “Great, great, I just - It’s starting to feel like, lately, everyone else is better than me at taking care of my wife,” Matt growled as his chest tightened, and he dug his knuckles into his temples in frustration. “I can’t - I can’t keep trying to get her to talk to me if she just… won’t.”

Matt was lost, drowning in memories of being back in that storage center with his thoughts of Stephanie as his only hope. Only now, the one person in the world who had kept him alive for those endless hours of terror and pain seemed to hate him just as much as he hated himself. And if he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror, how could he ask her to look him in the eyes, to forgive him for what he did, or what he didn’t do?

Nate could see Matt spinning out, but he felt frozen in place, unsure what - if anything - he could do to help. So finally Jonathan offered an out. “Your stuff is in the Firebird. I could help you bring it-”

“No, thanks,” Matt muttered under his breath. “I’ve got it. You two… get some rest.” And he ducked out the door of the Roadhouse before either of them could say anything to stop him.

Nate tugged at the front of his hair, sighing as he sagged a few inches down the wall before he decided that if he went any lower, he’d hit the floor and never get up again. Jonathan balled his hand up into a fist and gently knocked it against the top of Nate’s head. “So what were you doing out there in the middle of nowhere anyway?”

But Nate just rubbed his jaw and groaned, “Talk later. Bed now.”

Jonathan gave a nod, or maybe his head just fell forward and he couldn’t pick it up again. “You know what? You’re right. Let’s go.” Then they stumbled together towards the back to find a horizontal place on which to collapse.

Outside, Matt staggered to the edge of the gravel lot and threw up what little dinner Ro had managed to get into him into the grass and shrubs. His knees gave out from under him, his head swimming, skin clammy, and the memories of Afton washed over him in waves in a threat to pull him under completely. Matt could feel skeletal hands grazing his arms, could hear Afton’s singing as he worked, and that cold, empty sensation yawned open inside of him again - all the best parts of him draining away, leaving behind the self-centered, obsessive coward that shivered underneath.

Panic squeezing his chest tight, Matt leaned one hand forward and caught the edge of a tree trunk that he crawled to like a scared kid. He pressed his back to it, put his head between his knees, and sank into himself. His whole body shivered in fear.

He was weak, and dead or not, Afton had broken him. Just like that.

And now, he was no good to anybody - not to his wife, not to his brother. They had other people to take care of them. Other people who were doing a better job than Matthew ever could. So what did that make him, other than just completely useless?

After what felt like an hour, after the shaking had subsided into exhaustion, Matt pushed himself up and unloaded the things from the car, dragging it all inside in several trips. With it all finally inside, he wandered back to the room Ro was letting them stay in. The lights were out, a box fan blowing in one corner, and Stephanie slept facing away from the door.

Matt swept a hand over his face and went back to look for his laptop.

* * *

The next morning, the sun had only just cleared the horizon as the gang gathered at the cliff’s edge once again, this time with a roaring monster truck that shook the air around the place that it sat. The large, tattooed man, Jimmy, smiled from the front seat as Ro waved sweetly up at him. Down the side of the cliff, Matt and Nate strung the cable attached to the monster struck around Jonathan’s car, and once they got it secure, Nate hooked the cable to the rear axle. Then, giving it a tug, he called back to them, “Alright, pull her up!”

Ro gave a thumbs-up before turning back to Jimmy and waving at him to start hauling the wreck up. As the truck rolled backwards, the car slowly lifted up, and all seemed well until it tipped back onto all four wheels and knocked against another car among the pile. The second wreck slid from its place, and seeing where it was falling, Matt snatched Nate back in time for them both to dodge it as it almost crushed them.

“Hey!”

“Easy up there!”

Ro squealed, wringing her hands together as Jonathan leaned over the edge, trying to see them through the dust kicked up by the falling car. “Whoa, you guys okay down there?”

“Yeah, unfortunately the car missed us!” Nate called up to them, and Ro rolled her eyes before stalking away from the edge. Jonathan smirked, giving the “Ok” signal back to the others.

“Just - take it nice and slow!” Matt added, pushing himself up against a large rock and was sure to stay clear as the car began to move again. Little rocks and chunks of earth rained down on the two brothers as it lifted higher and higher. Then, rolling and bumping over the side of the rock wall, it cleared the edge, and Jimmy cut the engine on the truck. Jonathan winced as the others cheered.

He rushed to his car’s side, brushing his hands over the dented metal. “We made it through so much together…” Jonathan had never wanted to punch a ghost in the face more than he did in that moment. With a crowbar in one hand, he mournfully started working on getting the back door open.

“Oh, Jimmy!” Ro pulled herself up to the driver’s window and leaned inside to plant a kiss on the giant of a man’s cheek. He blushed deeply. “Aren’t you just the sweetest?” She hopped back down to join the others as Stephanie searched for whatever Nate couldn’t pull from the wreck the night before.

She pulled free her toiletries bag and the first-aid kit. Heaven knew she’d need both. “Finally something good happens.”

Matt cupped his hands around his mouth. “Did you find your stuff?”

“Yeah, it’s still here!” Stephanie called back and hugged the bags to her chest. It was small, but it’s what she needed after the previous night.

“‘Still here,’” Nate mused as he kicked at an old bumper of one of the more smooshed cars at the bottom of the pancake pile. “What does she mean that it’s ‘still here’? Who’s going to take it? A coyote?”

Matt shrugged, only barely listening to Nate’s rambling as he picked through some of the odds and ends that had fallen around in the sparse shrubbery. Nate headed back to the hiking rope, ready to start the long climb back up. It didn’t seem to get any shorter no matter how many times he climbed it. Matt dug around, eventually pulling something loose from one of the wrecks.

“Matt, the buzzards are circling.” Nate tugged on the line to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere without them. “Let’s get back up.”

“Look!” Matt brushed the dust away from what he was holding in his hands - a license plate. “Minnesota! What’s someone from Minnesota doing all the way out here?”

“These cars all belonged to hunters, dude. They come from all over.”

Matt stared down at it a bit longer before shrugging and tossing it back onto the pile and joining Nate. After another night without any sleep, he just hoped they wouldn’t have to haul him up like the wrecked car.

* * *

Later that day in the backroom of the Roadhouse, Stephanie combed through their few belongings, folding clothes and putting them away in the three-drawer chest shoved into one corner of the matchbox room. Lifting one shirt from the duffel, she stared down at it, huffed in exhaustion, and dropped onto the bed. Tears threatened in the corners of her eyes, but she was tired of crying. She balled up the shirt in her hands and threw it back into the duffel bag.

A moment later, a gentle knock at the door raised Stephanie’s gaze, and Matt poked his head in. “Hey, I thought I’d come… help.” He edged into the room as Steph looked around, gesturing to their meager space and belongings.

“There’s not much to do, but knock yourself out, I guess.”

Matt eyed the pile of clothes and wearily picked up the balled-up shirt. Then, glancing nervously at his wife, Matt sat down on the bed beside her. “Stephanie - I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never told you about hunting. I never would have thought I’d be doing it again. I should have told you about Afton and what he meant to me, but... how could I do that without telling you everything? I just wasn’t ready to do that yet.”

Steph took the shirt from him and folded it in her lap. “Would you ever have been?”

They both knew the answer.

Glancing down at his now empty hands, Matt shook his head, unable to say the truth out loud. Stephanie huffed, turning away from him, and Matt cried, “Just tell me what I did wrong, please! Talk to me; I swear, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right! Whatever it takes to make it up to you!”

“Matthew, it’s the fact that you don’t know what you did that has me so upset!” She stood, backing away from the bed, but she couldn’t go far in the tight space of the room. She would’ve liked to jump out the window.

Then Matt stood, taking a step back himself. Even with both their backs pressed to opposing walls, they were only a few feet apart. “Well then how am I supposed to apologize for it? That’s not exactly fair, Steph!”

“Oh, fair?” Steph asked, her hands pressed to the wall behind her. “You want to talk about ‘fair’?”

Matt hung his head, feeling his chest tighten again, skeletal fingers combing through his hair. “No - Stephanie…”

“The man I fell in love with would understand how big of a deal this is to me! He would’ve understood what was ‘fair’ and what wasn’t!”

“I’m still that man!” Matt shouted back at her, swinging one arm through the air between them, and though he didn’t come close to touching her, Stephanie flinched back. And Matthew shrank back in on himself. He’d never felt so small.

“Are you?” she asked, her voice so soft he barely heard it.

Was he? Matt opened his mouth to say something, anything that could somehow make this right, but he was cut off by a knock at the door. Ro cleared her throat and called to them, “Hey guys? Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No, come in, Ro,” Steph said back.

Ro opened the door slowly, and Matt edged away from it, going to another corner of the room to fidget with some of his things. Rosanna fiddled with her hair as she glanced between the two of them. “Well, I needed to head out for some things for around here, routine run into town - what’s happened to my life - and I was just wondering if either of you lovebirds would like to go with me? It might be fun.” She tapped the tips of her fingers together awkwardly. “Or at least it’s… something to do?”

Matt combed his fingers through his hair. “Ro, I don’t think we’d be very good company right now.”

Offended and more than happy to put distance between herself and this place, Steph took the three steps across the room to Ro and grabbed up her purse along the way. “On the contrary, I would love to go to town with you, Ro.” Shooting a glare at Matt’s back, she added, “And I think I would make excellent company.”

Ro smiled despite the awkwardness and tried to keep her voice its usual chipper tone. “Great! Let’s head on out then!” Stephanie practically bolted from the room, past Ro, and back into the front room of the Roadhouse. Rosanna looked up at Matt again, but he wouldn’t turn to look at her.

“This is going to be harder than I thought,” she muttered to herself and spun to catch up with Stephanie.

Matthew collapsed onto the bed, his head in his hands, and he didn’t bother to look up when someone else knocked on the open door. Nate leaned on the doorframe, his lips pressed together into a line before he popped them to get Matt’s attention, asking, “Hey, Jimmy hauled Jonathan’s car out back behind the Roadhouse. So you want to stay in here folding clothes like a housewife or would you rather come see if your laptop is still kicking like a nerd while I look at the car?”

Matt made a small noise of agitation in the back of his throat before he held a hand out to Nate who pulled him to his feet and slapped him on the back as they headed outside.


	5. Cut it Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My electricity has been out since Sunday night because of a storm knocking out a power line, and the first thing I do when I get electricity again? All of the classwork for my online classes that's been piling up all week? Heck no. I upload a chapter of DMC instead, because of course XD
> 
> -Reverse

Downtown  
March, 2011

After their day in town, Ro and Steph stop by a local malt shop, its walls painted a retro robin’s egg blue and decked in old movie posters and neon signage. Ro looked around in jealous awe. “This is _exactly_ what I want to do with the Roadhouse!” She lovingly stroked the chrome edge of the countertop as they passed while Steph giggled and took their shakes from the soda jerk.

At their little table near the back, the ladies dug into their shakes, and Stephanie sighed happily. “How can one milkshake taste so good?”

“It’s because they’re made with love,” Ro giggled as she plucked her cherry from atop the little mountain of whipped cream and popped it in her mouth. “And a secret recipe that I’ve been trying to sweet talk them into giving me for years.”

Stephanie laughed and shook her head. “You would.”

Ro winked. “Honey, my charm is my best asset! You think I got that Roadhouse by paying for it? No, I charmed this sweet, gray-haired lady into letting me renovate it.” She fanned her face, batting her eyelashes even as she rolled her eyes. “You would not believe what being home to a bunch of hunters for fifty years will do to a place.”

“No, I think I would know,” Steph said, her tone falling a bit as she poked at her shake with the red and white striped straw.

“Oh no! I didn’t mean-!” Ro smacked her hands pathetically onto the table and frowned. “Oh, I didn’t mean to ruin your good mood, Steph. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s alright.” Stephanie reached forward and plucked up the cherry from her shake as well, but she spun it by its stem between her fingers instead of eating it. “Just - it’s weird to get used to, you know? Living in a world where monsters are real, and they snatch your husband and…” She looked up at Ro through her dark eyelashes, and the other woman pressed a hand over her heart.

“Steph, darling, you’ve got a whole slew of people looking out for you now. What happened to Matt is not going to happen again.” She wrapped her fingers around the base of her milkshake glass and leaned forward a bit. “Hunters look out for each other, at least the good ones, and I only let the good ones into my Roadhouse.” She took a long sip through her straw as she watched Stephanie’s face work its way through that bit of information.

“I didn’t even know you were tied up in all this,” Steph muttered, and Ro blanched a little in shame. But Stephanie only shook her head. “I don’t blame you, of course, but two weeks ago the only things that scared me were taxes and spiders. And now…” She didn’t need to say anything more. Ro understood.

“You’re not alone, Steph.” Ro reached across the table to Stephanie and grasped her hand. “It’s easy to look out at all that you don’t know and assume everything is out to get you-”

“Isn’t it?” she asked, a break in her voice.

“No!” Ro gave her hand another squeeze, trying to reassure her. “Stephanie, eighty-five percent of the things people like Nate and Matt hunt are just animals. Predictable, pattern-oriented, that’s how they’re found and stopped in the first place.”

Steph dropped the cherry back into her shake with a sigh. “Jonathan made it sound like these days hunters don’t know what to expect anymore.”

Ro raised her eyebrows at that and sat back a little, pulling her straw closer for another sip. “Really? What else did Jonathan say?”

Shooting Ro a cold glare over her shake and regretting bringing him up in the first place, Steph muttered, “He said I should talk to my husband.”

Ro threw her hands into the air. “Well, you should, girl! Listen, I understand wanting answers, I do, but Matthew should be the one to give them to you, not Jonathan.” She wiggled her fingers vaguely. “Don’t get me wrong, Jonathan is a sweetheart. Everyone knows he’s the only one that kept Nate in one piece all these years. But he’s not your husband. Only Matt is going to know how to ease your mind.”

Steph could feel her temperature rising again, and of all the people she didn’t want to argue with, she didn’t want to argue with Ro. But she was also reaching her breaking point. “No! No, I’m so sick of everyone getting into the middle of our business like they have personal stakes in it or something!”

“We do!” Ro sighed, lowering her voice a little as other people in the shop started to notice their argument. “We only pester you about it because we love you both, and we want what’s best for you. We want you to be happy!”

Stephanie snatched a napkin from the dispenser, twisting it between her fingers as she spoke, agitation making her voice shake, “I just want to go back to the time in my life when people believed that _I_ knew what was best for me - not Nate, not Matthew, just me.” Then, without really realizing, she dabbed the napkin beneath her eyes where tears had appeared very suddenly.

Ro listened, stunned into a red-cheeked silence as Stephanie went on. “Matthew had no right to keep all of this from me, and then hide behind this macho ‘I was trying to protect you’ crap. We are married! I-I’m his wife! I deserve to know everything, especially when it’s a matter of life and death, and _especially_ when he’s still entertaining it behind my back!”

Steph shut her eyes, tilted her head back because she really was so sick of crying. “He goes on and on about how he swore this part of his past was dead and buried, and then obsesses over this Afton case for an entire _month_ and doesn’t tell me once. Nothing.” Looking down again, she felt sick. “And he nearly died.”

She flapped her hand angrily, the napkin flopping around with it, and by then, her face was fully drenched in angry, pent-up tears. “The only reason he’s not dead is because I went to find his crazy, estranged step-brother… Who also lied to me! As if Nathan Smith knows what would freak me out better than I do!”

“Well, it seems he was right,” Ro added while scooping up a dollop of whipped cream with one of her fingers, sticking it into her mouth as she raised both eyebrows at Steph who scoffed.

“That’s - that’s not the point.”

Rosanna took a deep breath, trying to be patient. “Isn’t it, though?” Another breath, she reached across the table again, but Stephanie drew back. Ro let her head tilt forward. “Are you more upset that Matt didn’t tell you, or that his reasons for not doing so were correct?”

Stephanie cast her gaze away and drank from her milkshake. It was going to turn into soup if she didn’t, and she’d rather avoid the question for a moment as she thought, her brow wrinkled up. Ro clicked her nails on the table in thought. “You should ask Matthew to tell you the story of how he found out about all this. He wasn’t raised in it like Nate, you know.”

“Why?” Steph asked, tears still staining her tone.

Ro smoothed her hands over the table, still clicking her fingernails. “I just think - it might help you understand some things about why he did what he did. Or you could ask Nate, but I suspect his wounds over the whole thing aren’t fully healed yet.”

“Matthew is as much of a control freak as I am. I imagine it didn't go over very well.” Stephanie poked at the remaining chunks of chocolate ice cream and syrup in her shake, not noticing what she said right away.

Not until she looked up and saw the way that Ro knowingly slurped at her own shake. Steph knew her husband, knew that learning about all this would turn his world upside down just as it had with hers. And he was only a child. She couldn’t begin to imagine the toll that would take.

Steph sighed and finally smiled up at Ro who beamed back with pride. “He still could’ve told me,” Steph added, and Ro nodded a little.

“Maybe, maybe not. But the truth is out there. Are you really going to run to Jonathan your whole life every time you have to face it?”

Steph’s gaze dropped down to her lap, and she drew her hands back from her milkshake, wiping them on her jeans. “No, I think I would like to know that the man who stole my heart will still be there for me when I need him.”

She smiled to herself, thinking of those early days when she first met Matt, and was a little smitten with him even if she knew she shouldn’t get carried away so quickly. Of course, she’d never met anyone else quite like him, doubted that she ever would again. As furious as he could make her, she wouldn’t trade him for anyone or anything. “I want to be able to turn to Matthew.”

“Then, darling, why don’t you ask him?” Ro pleaded with her, offering the glass of her milkshake for a sort of toast.

Steph smirked as she raised her glass. “You might say that I already have.”

Both women laughed, polishing off the last of their milkshakes and wiping their mouths. As they were gathering their things to go, Ro held up a finger, “Hey, we’ve got one more stop to make before heading back.”

“Oh?” Stephanie glanced up at her as Ro stood up from the table. “Where?”

Ro wiggled her eyebrows as the corners of her mouth turned up. “Oh, I think you’re going to really like this!”

* * *

Out back behind the Roadhouse, music played over the Firebird’s radio, the doors wide open to the afternoon air as Nate pulled at the dented plastic bumper half-hanging from the car. His shades hiding his eyes as he worked, his head bobbed with the music, the steady rhythm of a project to work on always felt nice.

Glancing over the top of his shades to where Matt was sitting cross-legged in a patch of grass nearby, Nate cleared his throat and asked, “The suspense is killing me, is that thing still working or not?”

Matt clacked away at the keys, his chin leaned into his hand. “It does, so far at least. No small miracle there.” He growled, scrubbing his fingers through his golden brown curls. “Just wish Ro had better internet…”

“Out here? It’s a wonder she’s got any at all!” Nate finally got the bumper off, falling back against the ground with the force of it and then hefting the dented plastic over his head in triumph before tossing it aside. Looking up at Matt again to see his reaction, Nate wiped the sweat from his forehead with a gloved hand. Matt was so absorbed in the laptop, he hadn’t noticed Nate’s small victory.

Sighing and brushing dust off his jeans, Nate inched over to reach through the open door of the Firebird and crank up the radio as it played “She Drives Me Crazy” by the Fine Young Cannibals. As the music reached a fever pitch and Nate began to sing along at the top of his lungs and way off key, Matt finally looked up, shooting a glare right between Nate’s eyes.

Nate pretended he’d actually been shot, falling back against the car, his eyes rolling back.

“You always were lacking in the subtlety department, weren’t you?” Matt grumbled.

Nate peeked his eyes open and pouted in concentration. “I don’t get it…”

Matt rolled his eyes, a smile tugging at his mouth which had moments ago been pursed in concentration. Nate turned down the music again with a smirk. Then he went back to his own task, picking up a new tail light from his pile and sitting back down at the rear of the Firebird. “Nah, I’d hate to interrupt your MySpace editing.”

“As if.” Matt shook his head in dismay, glaring at the laptop screen once more. “I’m looking for any reports of accidents on this stretch of road over the last five or so years. Maybe there’s something Ro doesn’t know that can help explain who our mystery driver is.”

Nate worked his jaw a little in thought and glanced at Matt from the corner of his eye. “Kinda thought this was my job since you’ve got, you know, more important things to do.”

Matt had his own project to distract him, though, as always. Solving the mystery of a ghost was easier than sorting out his own issues. “Like what? Insurance is all tied up right now until the investigation is through. We just have to hope they buy our story and don’t find any evidence to the contrary.” He continued to scroll through search options, none that yielded much of a result, and Nate just rolled his eyes.

“I was kind of thinking more personal issues.” Nate raised both dark eyebrows as Matt looked up at him again between glances down at the screen. “A certain lovebug, ring any bells?”

With a glare, Matt’s eyes danced away again, and he set his jaw. “I tried to apologize at least a hundred times now, but she’s the one that is being completely unreasonable.”

Nate turned back to the tail light, frustrated but not wanting to press the matter. Once he had it in place and all connected, Nate stood and walked to the driver’s seat where he tested the light to make sure it worked. John would’ve been proud, he thought, and then quickly dashed that thought away before turning off the car and radio. He walked back to his brother’s side.

“Well, you find anything about the road?”

Matt growled again, and the more frustrated he got, the more his hair stuck out in all directions - just like when they were kids and he was trying to solve a particularly difficult math problem. “No. It’s almost like we’re miles from anywhere, and all the hunters whose cars have crashed aren’t interested in having the police come and poke around.”

“Gotta love hunters.” Nate took off his gloves and sank down onto the ground next to Matthew, swiping a finger at his brother’s nose to distract him. “Sounds like you know where they’re coming from, though.”

“I am _not_ a hunter,” Matthew spat back. He knew he sounded like a bitter jerk, sneering at the only life his brother had ever known, but he couldn’t really stop himself either. “I just don’t want to go to prison.”

“Whatever you say.” Nate reached for one of the water bottles that Matt had brought with him and cracked it open, guzzling about half the bottle as they sat in silence. Then Nate flicked a little bug off his knee and tilted his head to the side. “You know, we may not have any official reports, but we do have something better.”

Matt looked up to see Nate gazing at Jonathan’s car, which had been towed over and dropped beside the Firebird. Matt frowned.

It took quite a bit of work to get the poor wreck up on blocks so that Nate could get on a rolling board and fit beneath it. Once he did, he started poking around, murmuring to himself, “Let’s see what we can find, shall we?” The more time he spent fiddling, the more time Matt spent pacing.

“You know, it’s not like I’m running away from everything,” he said as he walked back and forth. “This is just - it’s a good distraction. Every other part of my life is wrecked, so maybe I can help make something _right_ , you know?” He scrubbed at his hair again, the thought that he’d go bald by the age of thirty crossing his mind.

Nate hummed in reply, barely listening as he searched for anything out of the ordinary. He’d found it was best in times like these to just let Matt get it all out of his system. Offering advice, trying for a solution - none of it really did any good. Not that Nate thought he could offer any real advice on relationships. Matt just needed a sounding board, and Nate could do that at least.

He always had.

“I’ve done everything I need to, I think. I’ve called the insurance company a hundred times. I’ve signed all their forms. I’ve answered all the questions - more or less. I’ve done everything a responsible adult should do! And then with Stephanie…” His voice cracked again, and Nate’s hands paused for a moment. Matt sighed. “I’ve tried, okay? But she won’t hear it.”

Matt pressed his hands to either side of his head, his fingertips digging into the skin at his temples. All the while his feet continued to shuffle through the dirt and sparse, dried grass. “Look, I _know_ I messed up. I _know_ I should have told her about hunting and monsters and all of this, but how could I? How could I ruin her life - our life?”

He groaned then and dropped into a sitting position by the Firebird, his head in his hands. “She doesn’t understand the kind of burden I had! To know these things are out there and to keep it to myself? To try to keep an eye on her while she’s totally oblivious! I mean, there’s a reason I didn’t tell her. Does she think I didn’t trust her?”

Matt rubbed at his face, unable to work out where exactly everything had gone wrong. If he could just figure out the source of the problem, the real source, maybe he could find a solution to this whole mess.

“She’s so concerned about me feeling the right kind of guilty that she hasn’t stopped to consider how I felt…” He brushed his hands up and down his arms to chase away the chill. “And why I did the things I did - or didn't do. Now you tell me, how is that fair?” Matt leaned his head back against the side of the Firebird. “It’s my fault, though, isn’t it? And that’s all that matters at the end of the day, and if she doesn’t forgive me…”

Nate went back to searching, wishing he knew what to say.

Matt kept absent-mindedly rubbing his arms. “I don’t want to lose her, Nate. I can’t lose her.” He shivered at the thought.

They fell into silence again before Nate grunted, “Huh.”

Matt ducked to peer under the car. “You find something?”

“Think so, actually - yeah.” Nate wheeled himself out from under the car and sat up. “Brake line was cut.”

“Cut?” Matt frowned, that familiar bulldog determination entering his eyes again.

“Yup, cut.” Nate held up a blackened metal ring with an eagle inside of it. “With this.”

“What the heck?” Matt took it from him and wiped some of the dust and grime off of the small token before turning it over in his fingers a few times.

Nate nodded. “What the heck indeed.”


	6. Lonely Highway Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got to say, while it's been a real treat to write for y'all, and hopefully give you a little distraction in these trying times, your deep thought out comments on this fic so far have been a great distraction for me as well. I love getting to chat with everyone, because while writing this takes up quite a bit of my uselessly free time, it's nice to talk to people, even if it is just online.
> 
> So keep flexing, my dudes. You're doing me a favor.
> 
> \- Becca

The Roadhouse  
March, 2011

The interior of the Roadhouse thrummed with music drifting from the jukebox in one corner as Jonathan manned the bar. Not many hunters were in town that night. Between the ghost driving cars off a cliff, the stories already spreading about Matthew Patrick, and well, _Nate_ , there weren’t many people keen on sticking around. Not that Jonathan minded all that much.

After the hustle and bustle of the last few days, cleaning down the counter at the Roadhouse and listening to his favorite music was a far cry from taxing. He was nearly half-convinced he should ask Ro for a job when she and Steph returned, laughing and leaning on one another with bags hanging off their arms.

“Welcome back, ladies. I take it you enjoyed yourselves?” he offered as he eyed both them and the copious amounts of shopping bags.

They set everything down on top of the bar and both hopped up to take a seat. Ro smacked the glossy bar counter with a wide, childlike grin. “Two of your finest beverages please, my good man. Tonight we are celebrating!”

Jonathan gave her a little salute before turning away and returning with three cream sodas in gleaming glass bottles. “As you wish, miladies. I’ll have one, too, if you don’t mind. Think I’ve earned it today.” He looked to Ro for confirmation, and she nodded gratefully. Jonathan smirked. “May I inquire as to the occasion?”

Steph raised a finger at him, and Jonathan was glad to see the humor in her eyes again. “That’s for us to know, and you to… know one day, maybe.”

He shrugged and cracked open the sodas for each of them. “Fair enough.”

Ro raised her bottle for a toast. “To family, friends, and those who are a little bit of both!”

“Cheers!”

They all three knocked their bottles together and took a few sips before Steph set her drink aside while raising her eyebrows. “So, what trouble have the boys caused while we were gone? Or did they flee the country as soon as our backs were turned?”

“Why don’t you ask them yourselves?” Jonathan said, gesturing with his bottle towards the door as the boys came in, Matt toting the laptop and Nate wiping a cloth over his grimy face.

Matts silently took a seat at the bar, a few feet away from Steph and Ro.

Nate leaned over the bar beside him and made grabby hands towards Jonathan’s soda until he turned away and got one for Nate. Then as if noticing the girls for the first time, Nate tossed the little emblem at Ro who caught it with a surprised squeak as it flew at her face. “Off the top of your head, do you have any idea what that is?”

Ro turned the emblem over in her hand as she inspected it more closely, and Steph also checked it out over her friend’s shoulder. At first Ro thought it might be a charm or talisman of some sort, but it wasn’t any kind that she had ever seen before. It almost seemed like it was broken off of something, though she couldn’t imagine what. “No, I’ve got no idea.”

Nate took a long swig of his soda and worked his way into a sitting position, stiff from all the recent physical activity and uncomfortable sleeping positions - namely with Jonathan’s feet in his face. “It’s a hood ornament from a 1950’s era Chrysler Imperial.”

He made a face. “I know, what kind of name is ‘Chrysler’?” Matt slapped his shoulder as Jonathan slid an open soda to him as well, and Nate put his hands up. “Alright, alright, I’m sure she’s a lovely person. Anyway, I dug this Chrysler hood ornament out of Jonathan’s slashed brake line, something that was not slashed prior to our spectral speed racer’s visit last night.”

“More like a demolition derby than a race,” Jonathan griped to himself. He was still in mourning over the loss of his car.

“RIPeroni to the Penguin Mobile,” Nate saluted with his soda, Jonathan placing one hand over his own heart and nodding woefully.

“At least that explains why you lost control,” Steph offered as she stole glances in Matthew’s direction and sipped from her drink.

Avoiding eye contact like he’d learned a thing or two from his brother, Matt had opened the laptop up again before turning it around to show everyone pictures of the Imperial in question, or at least a less ghostly version of it. “Ro, do you recognize this kind of car? Or does the name mean anything to you?”

Ro gave it a long, hard look, but eventually, she shook her head, resting her chin dejectedly on the top of her soda bottle. “No, I’m afraid not, Matty. It’s… pretty though?”

“What about Minnesota?” Matt probed, feeling awkward and choked as Steph kept trying to catch his gaze. “We found a Minnesota license plate among the wrecks, definitely older than anything a hunter would drive. Do you know anyone from that part of the country?”

Ro started to shake her head again until suddenly something dawned on her. “Oh! Jimmy!” Ro turned towards the back of the bar where the giant of a man still sat with his feet propped in one of the chairs.

Nate frowned. “Does he just live here, or…?”

Ro swiped the laptop from Matt’s hands and hopped down from her stool. “Jimmy, you’ve been coming here longer than I've owned it. Do you recognize this car at all?” She showed the pictures to Jimmy, fidgeting with a cupcake charm necklace as he considered the screen.

“Or maybe you know someone with Minnesota plates?” Matt saw Nate roll his eyes in the corner of his vision, and he playfully shoved Nate’s head to the side as the younger brother smirked. Matt knew that plate led somewhere, no matter what the peanut gallery thought.

Jimmy leaned forward and nodded slowly towards the screen. “I know ‘em. Know that car, too.”

Matt shot Nate a victorious look, and Nate, in turn, flicked the back of Matt’s ears every time he turned away.

Jonathan thought he caught sight of Steph trying to hide a smirk. He had to admit himself it was strange to see Nate acting so… normal around someone else. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Steph to see Matt interact with his brother for the first time.

Matt slapped one hand in Nate’s general direction as he turned back to Jimmy. “So you know who owned it?”

Jimmy nodded again. “Yep.”

Nate dodged Matt swiping at his head and asked, “Do you know where we could find them?”

“Yep.”

Ruffling Nate’s hair into his eyes, Matt grinned in excitement. “Is it close?”

Nate cleared his throat and blew his hair from his eyes. “Let me guess: the answer is ‘yep’?”

Jimmy narrowed his eyes at Nathan, crossing his massive, muscular arms over his barrel chest. “About a half day’s drive north.”

Nate slapped the counter, getting up from his place. “Guess that means I need to pack.” And he started for the back of the Roadhouse while Jonathan shot jealous glares at the back of his head. Nate knew it, too, and he smirked as he waved over his shoulder.

Matt crossed the room to Jimmy, picking up his laptop again and handing Jimmy his phone. “Would you put that address in for me?” As Jimmy punched in the address, Matt shut the laptop and thanked him for all his help. Once he took his phone back, he started to follow Nate towards the back, finally feeling like he had a solid direction to go, finally feeling almost normal. But a voice froze both brothers in their tracks.

“Matthew!”

Matt stopped and turned to Stephanie, who had spoken up before she really thought through what she was going to say. The evidence of that snap decision burned in her cheeks as a deep blush. Matt pursed his lips and muttered, “Yeah?”

Steph tried not to let her shock and sudden flash of anger show in her face. Matthew looked like he couldn’t possibly imagine why she’d stopped him from bumbling after his younger brother like some sort of lanky tag-along - like the last time he’d gone hunting after something it hadn’t almost killed him. “Where are you going?”

Matt could tell she didn’t want him to go, even if he wasn’t sure exactly why. Surely, he thought, she’d be happy to get him out of the way for a while after all the “quality time” they’d spent together lately. “I’m going to keep digging. We’ve got to stop this thing before it strikes again. You and Jonathan got lucky, but someone else might not.”

It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t really the truth either.

Steph dropped her gaze, the blush reaching her ears then. “Sure, sure.”

Matthew sighed. What could he have done wrong now? He hadn’t so much as looked at her the whole time he was there. Or was his presence alone enough to make her sick? “Stephanie, do you not want me to go?”

“No, no, by all means, go off and play hunter.” She raised her hands as what little hope Ro had instilled in her on their day trip very quickly drained away. “I’ll just be here, holding down the fort.”

“Fine, I will.” Matthew’s tone changed from a tense confusion to a bubbling contempt that had been festering in his chest since the fire. “But, you know, you can drop the passive aggressive act. I know you think I’m incapable of doing anything right, but we’ve always been honest with each other at least.”

Steph managed a sarcastic laugh even though her words started sticking in her throat as she spoke, “Oh, ‘honest,’ he says! That’s really cute, coming from you.” She hated this.

“It’s also true!” Matt tore at his hair, his cheeks flushing with color as his anger slowly got out of control. The rest of the Roadhouse got deadly silent around him. Here was his wife, his whole world wrapped up in a person, refusing to so much as try to understand his side of things.

He’d nearly died, and now he felt cold and empty and too tired to deal with the guilt she wanted him to feel.

“I was always honest with you when you did something that bothered me, always! That’s fair and healthy communication. You were the one that taught me that!” Matt yelled, feeling all the panic and all the loneliness rushing back at once, the chill reaching his bones. His voice was impossibly small when it returned, “To be open and real, no matter how insignificant it was. I just don’t understand why things have changed so much that you don’t do that for me anymore.”

“Excuse you-” Stephanie started, but Matt shook his head. His whole body was shaking, really.

And he interrupted her, sighing, “No, I'm done. If you aren’t going to talk to me like a reasonable adult, then don’t talk to me. I can’t take it anymore.” Turning to Nate, he grumbled, “Please, let’s go do something productive and get the hell out of here.” Then he brushed past Nate who was frozen in place as his gaze met Stephanie’s.

He tried to follow after Matt.

Steph made a choked, frustrated noise. “Nate! Talk to him!”

“I can’t read minds, Cordy,” he answered back, only glancing up at her briefly. “I don’t know what he needs to hear, and even if I did, I doubt it would do any good coming from me.” Nate shrugged weakly. “I’m not the one who needs to talk to him.” He turned then and left, leaving the Roadhouse choked with silence behind him.

* * *

They took shifts driving through the night, and a few times, Nate glanced over at his brother sleeping in the passenger seat of the Firebird and wanted to pinch himself. It didn’t seem real. And then of course, he would lick a finger and stick it in Matt’s ear to startle him awake and get that trademark Older Sibling Glare that he’d missed for six years.

The sun was up by the time they pulled into the nursing home’s drive. Standing two stories tall, it was an old, homey place right out of _The Waltons_ with a big veranda wrapping around the first floor, rocking chairs dotted around in the shade, and a gorgeous view of a lake around the back that the boys could just catch glimpses of as they climbed out of the car. Nate stretched and rubbed at the sore muscles in his back and neck while Matthew dragged himself, blinking and squinting at the sunlight, from the passenger’s seat. He rubbed his eyes.

“Morning, sleeping beauty.” Nate grinned, and Matt took a playful swipe at him as they walked up the front steps to the screened-in veranda. A worker in turquoise scrubs pointed them in the direction of the lady they were looking for. She sat around back, where the pine trees parted to reveal the glittering lake that was in the cupped hand of the valley, a dock extending a few meters out where other elderly residents talked or played chess. She sat alone.

“Miss Doris?” Nate asked softly as they approached.

Her hands folded in her lap where she sat in one of the many rocking chairs, Doris lifted her gray head and looked up at the boys with gentle, smiling eyes. “Yes?”

Nate felt his words catch in his throat. She was just some old lady, barely as tall as Ro or Steph and considerably weaker. He was afraid if he reached out and touched her, she might break, but Matthew stepped in front of him, smiling easily and offering a hand.

“Hello, ma’am. My name is Matthew, and this is my brother Nate. We, well, we found something that we think might have belonged to you.” He and Nate both pulled up chairs to sit near her before Matt handed over the broken hood ornament.

Doris took it, adjusted her glasses on her nose, and looked down into her palm to study it. After she finally got her eyes to focus on it, they lit up with recognition, and something else, too, something deep and sad. She turned her head up towards the boys. “Where did you find this?”

Finally getting a little of his rhythm back, Nate answered, “Oh, we’re salvagers. Found what was left of the Imperial off the old state route and tracked the plates back to you. We wanted to find out the story.”

“Well, I don’t know how you found me.” Doris placed a hand to her chest as she continued to stare at the rusted hood ornament. “I never owned the thing. Unless, Earl - no, he wouldn’t have.”

Matt leaned his chin into one hand. “Earl?”

Doris tilted her head back, looking up at the ceiling of the porch as she remembered. “The owner. Earl Davensport. Now there was a good-hearted man. Earl had a lot of love to give, and he sure loved that car.” She cackled to herself, almost like she’d forgotten the boys were there.

“Doris, the old Imperial…” Nate paused a moment to figure out exactly how he wanted to phrase what he was about to say. “It’s pretty old now, but we think that the break line had been cut?”

The sadness in Doris’ eyes finally swallowed up the last of that light, and she brushed her thumb over the trinket in her hand. “So that’s how she did it.”

Matt’s hand dropped as he sat up. “She? Who?”

“Mallory. Mallory Davensport. Earl’s wife.” As Doris spoke, the boys swapped a look, and she didn’t miss the gesture - the momentary silent conversation. In fact, it made her smile at them as she continued, “I always knew it was her who killed Earl, but they never proved anything. Course, back then, we were much happier to let the picture perfect couple remain picture perfect. No one in our small town could be guilty of an affair, you see.”

“An affair?” Something in Matt’s tone turned sour, and it made Nate glance at him from the corner of his eye.

Doris nodded, setting the hood ornament on to the arm of her rocking chair like she couldn’t stand to touch it anymore. “Yes. Me and Earl, of course. I guess you could say I drove him to his death.”

Nate and Matt swapped another knowing look. It sounded like they had their ghost.


	7. Three Lanes Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the fantastic comments last chapter, everyone. Really helped us both stay entertained!
> 
> ALSO: CHECK OUT NATE'S NEWEST COVER ALBUM, WHICH WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR ALL MONTH AND IS THE REASON THIS CHAPTER WAS LATE IN BEING UPLOADED:  
> https://open.spotify.com/album/1BiLTih8x0bfls1GL7LrpH
> 
> srsly it's so good 19 songs of pure serotinin

Waltons Mountain   
March, 2011

Back on the road with the Firebird’s T-top stripped to let in the clean, mountain air, both the boys were lost in their own thoughts. Nate adjusted his sunglasses on his nose and sighed. “Poor Doris.” He couldn’t stop thinking about that look in her eyes, like she was all alone in the world with her own ghosts haunting her.

Matt turned his head away from the view out his side of the car towards Nate again. “For what?”

“I can’t imagine blaming yourself for getting someone you love killed.” It sent a pang through his chest just to say it out loud, but Matthew sounded less sympathetic.

“They were having an affair.” His head turned away again.

Nate drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, that awkward sour feeling in his stomach again. “Yeah, I know that. That’s a different can of worms.” He took a deep breath around the sticky sensation in his gut. “But that wreck happened, what, forty, fifty years ago? And she had to keep that secret all that time. She could never even mourn him.”

“I guess.” Matt rubbed at the back of his head where he could feel a headache forming. “Hopefully she’ll have a little peace now.”

They fell silent again for a long while the music played in their ears and the horizon filled up their gazes. Something was needling Nate, though. Something about Doris and Earl’s story started to fill in some of the blanks in his head. “Guess it makes sense why what I did - with Ro’s car and stuff - would wake that ghost.”

Despite the swirling storm in his own head, Matt could sense how the memory nagged at Nate. He didn’t even need brotherly intuition for that one, so he gave it a moment and asked, “What did happen?”

Nate fidgeted with his hair, which was all but pointless with wind whipping it around as they sped along down the highway. When he finally answered, his voice was so low that Matt could barely hear him above the music and the roar of the wind. “It was right after I ran out on Dad, about a year after you left.” He swallowed like there was something in his throat.

“I was trying to get some hunts on my own, making crap for other hunters, making more enemies for myself than killing anything.” Nate chewed on his lip for a while, thinking back to those days. They were all an angry red blur, if he was honest. “After some bad luck, I landed at the Roadhouse, and Ro offered to help. She would set me up on some hunts, help me get into the swing of being on my own, stuff like that. Guess she was hoping a little help would turn my attitude around.”

Matt tried not to flinch visibly. “I’m guessing it didn’t?”

“Hey man, I was going through some stuff.” He didn’t mean to sound so defensive. “I was… alone. You had run out. Dad and I had left Mary. A year later, I left Dad... You know, I had a lot of angst and all that junk.” Nate swallowed again, hating how desperate he probably appeared - the poor, whiny little brother with the attitude problem who couldn’t hack it without a babysitter around to control him. “Ro tried her best, but she really didn’t stand a chance against-” The ghosts, the abandonment issues, not to mention the trauma...

Dancing around the weightier topic at hand, Matt asked, “So, what happened with her car?”

Nate pressed his lips tight together, jaw twinging as he ground his teeth. “Ro was seeing this guy, not officially or anything, but she liked him and he liked her. I paired up with him once for a job and… learned some things about him that I probably should have told her, but,” his grip on the wheel tightened, “I couldn't bring myself to hurt her that bad.”

“He was married,” Matt guessed.

And Nate nodded. “He was very much married. Two and a half kids, retirement plan, the whole package. A whole life he never told Ro about, but he practically bragged to me about managing a family and a side piece.” Even now Nate wanted to throttle the guy just thinking about it. “Anyway, I should’ve told her, but I didn’t.”

“So, you wrecked her car?” Matt questioned, not understanding how those two dots connected.

“Well, let me get to it.” Nate dashed his hand through his hair again. “I tried to make a point to the guy that I didn’t want to hunt with him anymore, but he couldn’t take a hint if it slapped him across the face. So, he told me all about how he asked Ro to borrow the Iso Grifo for the weekend, only he planned to take his wife on this romantic getaway, and instead of telling Ro the truth…”

“You borrowed the car and wrecked it.” Matt still couldn’t follow the logic of Nate’s decision.

Nate pursed his lips again, drumming his hands nervously. “I might’ve wrecked it… with him in the car.” When Matt pulled his sunglasses down, eyes wide, to stare at Nate, the younger brother shot up one hand to shield himself. “I didn’t really set out to do it! I just wanted to scare him, take him around a few tight corners at top speed and see if he felt like messing with Ro then, or if I had finally scared him enough to fess up, but I, uh, you know…”

He shrugged, cheeks tinged with color, stomach twisting. “It’s not like you should be surprised. I was - I don’t know, backed into a corner, so I did something stupid to get out of it. Seems like typical Nathan Smith, if you ask me.”

Matt dropped his sunglasses into his lap. “Oh my God, Nate, you killed someone?”

“No!” Nate shook his head so violently he almost lost his own sunglasses. “No, God no. I - we were both fine, a little banged up, sure, but he survived.” Then Nate added, a little lower, “Unfortunately…” He readjusted his shades one last time and made an attempt to relax his shoulders, leaning one arm across his door and letting his head rest back against the seat.

Matthew did the math. “And you think you keeping that secret, the guy cheating on his wife, the car crash - it all awoke Earl’s ghost? He’s forcing his death onto other people who are being unfaithful?”

Nate shrugged. “Yeah, looks like it... oh, crap!” Nate’s eyes widened, spine going stiff again.

“What? What happened?” Matt leaned closer to his brother, trying to see his eyes behind the sunglasses. “Did you see something?”

“Huh?” Getting his train of thought crossed, it took Nate a minute to understand what Matt was asking about, the hallucinations. “No, no, I’m not seeing things anymore. I told you that.” He darted a glare towards Matthew before quickly turning his gaze back to the road.

Matt bit his lip, still frozen trying to read his brother’s eyes. “I know, I know.”

“Really? Do you?” Nate finally tore his shades off his face so that Matt could see. He was lucid. No dead children, no animatronics, nothing. “Because you keep asking like you’re  _ hoping  _ they’ll come back or something.” And Nate couldn’t imagine why, didn’t want to. It made him feel like he was just another one of Matt’s science experiments.

Matt winced again, this time harder than before. “What? No, how could you think that? Those hallucinations almost killed you, Nate, of course I don’t want them back.” Matt sank back into the passenger seat, the back of his skull buzzing with a growing migraine. It seemed like he couldn’t have a single conversation without being misunderstood or hurting someone’s feelings. “I’m just paranoid, I guess,” he murmured, more to himself than to Nate.

“Well, this ought to make you feel better.” Nate traced the tip of his tongue over the edges of his teeth as he weighed out how to put this, “I think the ghost thought Steph and Jonathan... you know, since he attacked them.”

That snapped Matt’s head right back around. “Stephanie is not having an affair!”

“No! I don’t think she is, not in that way, at least.” Nate took the exit off the highway. They weren’t far from the Roadhouse now. “But Jonathan has taken better care of her lately than you have!”

He  _ felt  _ the next glare that he got from Matt like he’d taken psychic damage from it, and Nate took a deep breath. “Look, this ghost was having an affair of his own. His moral compass doesn’t exactly point north, so maybe he sees - I don’t know - alienation of affection as close enough to kill someone!”

Matthew couldn’t breathe. He just kept thinking back to all the times that Jonathan stepped in when Matt was too busy dealing with his own crap to properly care for Steph. What had Matthew done for his wife in the past few weeks other than disappear, lead her on a wild goose chase to find him, set their house ablaze nearly killing her, and then fight with her ever since? Nate had only pointed out what he’d been avoiding thinking about since Jonathan showed up at the motel.

“Just - shut up and drive,” Matt muttered and switched his gaze back to the passing mountains and hills. Nate turned up the music to drown out both of their thoughts.

* * *

Ro was at work behind the bar, almost comically short in comparison to it even in her heels. Between serving customers, though, she watched Jonathan sweeping up and smiled to herself. “You know, if you ever want a job, I could always find a place to put you here.”

Jonathan grinned at her but shook his head as he worked the pile of dirt and cigarette butts into the dustpan. “Nah, I’m just trying to be helpful since I know the other two knuckleheads won’t be. Feel like at least one of us should earn our keep.”

Ro gave him a playful glare as Jonathan laughed and turned to toss the contents of the dustpan into the trash. A moment later, Ro’s phone rang, and she raised her eyebrows, motioning to Jonathan, when she saw it was from Matthew. “Matty! Where have you been? It’s been hours since you checked in!”

Matt cleared his throat and glanced towards Nate who was still pointedly ignoring him. “I know, I’m sorry, just lost track of time. But we’re pretty close now, only a half hour away at most.”

Jonathan walked over, leaning against the bar to listen in as Ro switched it to speaker phone and frowned. She could sense the bad vibes coming off of Matt even through the phone. “So, how did the nursing home go? Did you get any answers?”

“Yeah.” Matt tugged on his ear. “Apparently Doris was having an affair with the Imperial’s owner, Earl Davensport, whom Doris was bound and determined had been killed by his wife.”

Jonathan hissed through his teeth. “That’s rough, buddy.”

Ro poked out her bottom lip. “So, you think that Earl’s ghost is…?”

“Well, it’s a working theory.” Matt glanced at Nate again who was shifting awkwardly as he listened to one end of the conversation. “But we think he might be imprinting his death on others who he thinks are being… unfaithful.”

Jonathan paled visibly as realization struck him like a baseball bat upside the head. “Matt, I swear - Steph and I - we never…”

“I know, I know, Jonathan.” Matt rubbed at his forehead. Maybe if he massaged hard enough, the whole thing would go away and take his migraine with it. “That’s why it’s still just a working theory. We don’t know everything yet.”

Ro curled some of her hair around one finger as she started trying to piece it all together. “So, do you think that all the hunters who wrecked out here were involved in an affair, too?” She honestly didn’t want to think about it. She knew these people, many of them really well. It would break her heart to think that all of them were involved in something like that.

“Hard to say for sure.” Matt removed his sunglasses then and rubbed at his eyes. Nothing was going to get rid of this migraine. Until Nate reached over, never once taking his eyes off the road, punched the glove box to open it, and tossed Matt a bottle of headache medicine. Matt blushed gratefully, and Nate handed over a water bottle, too. “But, uh, we know one thing: salting and burning the car might put the spirit to rest for good.”

“Well, good luck,” Ro offered, still feeling there was something off with Matt.

Jonathan nodded, clearing his throat, “Yeah, and be careful! I can meet you down there if you guys want, maybe help you out?”

Matt just shook his head. “Nah, it should be pretty cut and dry. What could go wrong?” He nodded along as Ro said good-bye and told him to be very, very careful or else. “Okay, Ro, talk to you later.” It was only after he hung up and stuffed his phone back into his pocket that he noticed Nate glaring at him out of the corner of his eye. “What?”

“‘What could go wrong?’” Nate sighed. “Man, you just had to go and jinx us, didn’t you?”

Ro had only just hung up with Matthew when Stephanie came out of the back from her nap. She looked a little out of sorts. She always felt strange when she took a nap and woke up as the sun was going down. It took her a moment to realize that Jonathan and Ro were watching her closely, and combing her fingers through her hair self-consciously, she couldn’t say she appreciated the attention. “What? Do I have drool on my face or something?”

“We just got off the phone with Matthew,” Ro announced cheerily. “They’re fine, and they’re on their way back here!”

“Of course, first they’re going to stop by the sight of the wrecks to salt and burn a car,” Jonathan added, and Ro nodded along. “Oh, and they kind of think the reason that the ghost tried to kill us yesterday is because we were being unfaithful?”

Stephanie blinked once before her jaw dropped. “We were what?” she snapped.

Gawking herself, Ro turned on Jonathan who shrugged at her. “Hey, I just want to set the record straight! She should know the truth!”

“There is no record!” Stephanie insisted. “Nothing happened between us!”

Jonathan gestured towards her, turning his gaze back to Ro. “Exactly!”

Steph pressed her hands to either side of her head and spun away from them both. “I’m married! And I love Matthew, and I want to spend the rest of our crazy, monster filled, demon hunting lives together!” She dropped her arms to her side, suddenly feeling a horrible anxiety chewing its way through her chest. “Why in the world would a ghost care who I’m being emotionally vulnerable with?”

Ro made a face and explained the whole thing to Stephanie - Earl and Doris’ affair, the angry wife, the cut brake line. “It seems like he’s targeting people who he has deemed as unfaithful.” Ro’s frown deepened. “What a hypocrite!”

Stephanie growled. She couldn’t believe this, that she’d come to the point where a dead man was judging her for her marital issues. “This is exactly what I was talking about when I said I was sick of people butting into our private, personal lives! Now a ghost is doing it too?”

“But it’s all fine because Nate and Matt are handling it, and once they salt and burn the car, all of this nonsense will be put to rest,” Jonathan reminded her, and he actually managed to sound confident in the boys’ ability to end this without ending up as the new hood ornaments for the ghost car.

“Well, good riddance, honestly,” Steph said, crossing her arms over her chest. An awkward moment passed then as they all stood around trying to think of what to do next, and finally Stephanie pulled out her phone and stared down at it like she wasn’t quite sure how it worked. “I’m going to call Matthew”

Ro’s eyes lit up. “Good!”

Jonathan nodded. “A solid plan.”

Steph rolled her eyes at them before turning away and dialing Matt’s number, while behind her back Ro and Jonathan both did little victory dances as if it was their work alone that had convinced Stephanie to finally talk to her husband. Ro squealed and drummed her fingers together happily. “Oh, yeah. And who says I can’t play matchmaker anymore? Boom! Match, made!”

They fist-bumped each other, and Jonathan went back to sweeping, chuckling while Ro decided to make them both a sweet treat as a reward for their fabulous work as wing woman and man. Meanwhile, Steph waited for Matt to answer his phone.

* * *

At the cliffside, the boys hopped out and headed for the trunk as soon as Nate put the Firebird in park.

“Let’s get this over with already so I can get some heckin’ sleep,” Nate growled as he pushed aside all the crap he kept in his trunk, looking for everything they’d need.

Matt held up a dirty sock, making a face before tossing it back in among the other mess. This trunk seriously needed some organizing. “I told you I could drive us back from the nursing home.”

“That would’ve made me even more nervous. You drive like an old lady.” Nate finally found a shoebox full of supplies and popped it open. Grabbing a box of matches, a tub of salt, and some lighter fluid, he shut the trunk.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Oh, sure, and who taught you how to drive?”

Nate blinked at him as they walked. “Uh, me?”

“Fair.”

“Let’s just torch this-” Nate frowned. “Flambe this ferrari?” He shook his head, too tired to come up with a good one. “Whatever.”

Matt giggled and followed Nate to the edge of the cliff where they both peered over. Nate tossed Matt the salt while he opened the unscrewed the cap on the lighter fluid. “How do we know which one is the right car?” Matt asked.

Nate just shrugged. “Aim for anything that’s metal, dude.” Then he proceeded to dump lighter fluid down the side of the cliff. “Pour one out for Earl.”

Matthew followed up the lighter fluid with a liberal dusting of salt. Meanwhile, on the passenger seat, Matt’s phone lit up with Stephanie’s call as the EMF reader lit up with something different entirely. The Firebird’s stereo roared to life, spewing static, and as both boys turned at the sudden noise, they were instantly washed in the glow of headlights.

The ghost car revved its engine.

Nate sighed and let his glare roll over to Matt. “See? What could go wrong?”

Matt bit his lip. “It shouldn’t hurt us, right? We haven’t been unfaithful.”

The engine roared louder, and both of Nate’s dark eyebrows raised. “Speak for yourself.” As the car charged at them, Nate and Matt bolted for the Firebird, leaped over the doors and into their seats. Nate turned the key in the ignition, said a prayer, and shouted as the engine started after one try. “Thank you!”

He threw the car into reverse and tore out of the way as the ghost car swiped by them like a bull chasing a matador. Back into drive, Nate gunned it. The ghost car swerved around, immediately giving chase. Matt clicked his seatbelt into place and turned to look over his shoulder. “What about the burning?”

“You wanna end up roadkill, be my guest, but I’m not playing chicken with the ghost car!” Nate screamed as the car rammed their rear bumped. “Hey, I just replaced that!” he shouted into the rearview mirror. The car hit them again, and Nate set his jaw. “Fine. You want to play?”

Matt watched as Nate switched the car from automatic to manual, slamming the clutch and switching gears. “Hang on,” he muttered, eyes focused on the road ahead of them, and Matthew gulped.

“You can’t seriously think you’re going to outrun this thing!” Matt shouted above the sound of the engine.

Nate just smirked, “Not with that attitude,” and swerved suddenly off the road, heading deeper into the desert.


	8. Roadwork Ahead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does?

The Roadhouse   
March, 2011

Stephanie walked with a huff back to the bar and sat down, slamming her phone onto the counter. “He’s not answering!”

“Maybe he had bad cell service?” Ro offered, but Steph shook her head.

“He talked to you just fine a few minutes ago.”

Jonathan opened his mouth to say something, anything that might be helpful, only to mutter, “I got nothing.”

Ro waved her hands and pushed Steph’s phone back towards her. “Just keep calling! He might be sulking, just to see if you’ll keep trying!” Steph frowned at her, but Ro picked up the cell phone and placed it into Stephanie’s hand. “I don’t know, hun, just try again! Please, for my sake!”

Steph unlocked the phone with a sigh, “Fine.”

  
  


Matthew’s phone rang somewhere underneath his seat where it had fallen when he jumped into the Firebird, and as Nate swerved through the uneven terrain of the rock and sand desert, he ran right over a hole that came out of nowhere, tossing Matt around in his seat.

“You did that on purpose,” he hissed.

And Nate ground his teeth like he might file them down. “Yes, Matthew, I totally summoned a spirit specifically so it would try to kill us, and led it on this wild goose chase just so I could hit that one hole and rustle your jimmies! You got me!”

“You know what I mean!”

The ghost car attempted to ram them again, and Nate drifted narrowly out of the way. “No, I have no idea what you could possibly mean! Just-” Nate dug his phone out of his pocket and threw it at Matt’s chest.

“Ow!”

“Use it, lamebrain!”

“R-right,” Matthew fumbled with the phone. Nate hadn’t changed his password in six years, at least - still 80085 - it figured. “Jonathan might know what to do-”

Nate swerved again, hitting a loose patch of rocks and losing control. The Firebird spun around a few times before finally coming to rest, rocking on creaky shocks as it did so. Nate’s whole body felt like pudding splattered on the wall after a food fight. He stared ahead as the ghost car appeared in front of them, lining up for another shot, and Nate turned to his brother, all but seething.

Meanwhile, Matt was more worried about the ghost car that was seconds from pancaking them.

“Matthew, I am only going to say this once,” Nate said through a sarcastic smile, “and if you don’t listen to me, I can  _ not  _ be held responsible for what happens.”

Matt clutched the phone tight, eyes shifting from the ghost car to Nate. “Okay, what?”

Smile dropping, he growled, “Call. Your. Wife.”

Matt’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Matthew!”

In that moment, the ghost car charged again, Nate charging along with it. He counted the seconds, watched the distance between them dwindle down to mere yards, and at the last moment, he swerved to the side, clipped the bumper of the other car, and slowed to a stop again as the ghost vanished.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Nate shouted, out of breath, “this ghost is trying to  _ kill us _ because it thinks you’re being unfaithful to Stephanie!”

Matt tried to argue, “But I’m not-”

Nate was going to pop a blood vessel, maybe three. “Tell that to the literal freaking ghost trying to flatten us like a grape crossing the road, why don’t you! Just -  _ call  _ her, Matt. Talk to her. Apologize, listen, beg if you have to! Damnit, you should have done this days ago! I should have  _ made  _ you do this days ago, but I'm doing it now!”

Matt stared at him a moment before looking away, undecided. Behind them, the ghost car reappeared, and Nate shifted into gear. “Sure, bud, take your time! I can do this all night! Don’t mind my lack of sleep or our dwindling supply of gas! You really think this over, wouldn’t want to rush you.”

As they flew back towards the road, Matt looked down at Nate’s phone.

  
  


“That’s it!” Stephanie dropped the phone onto the bar again, getting up and stalking away a few paces. “It’s over! He hates me! He stopped for dinner at a  _ Wendy’s _ or something, fell in love with the waitress, and they are eloping back to Ohio!”

Jonathan blinked. “Why  _ Wendy’s _ ?” Steph glared at him, and Jonathan backed away from her. “Sorry! Sorry!”

Ro rounded the bar to take Stephanie’s hands in hers and plead with her. “Honey, you know that’s not true! I bet anything the love of your life is calling you as we speak!” Steph’s phone started to ring from the bar, and Ro’s face lit up in delight.

Stephanie rushed to grab it and frowned when she saw the caller I.D. “It’s Nate.”

Jonathan barked loudly with laughter, and Ro smacked his shoulder, making him hiss another apology. Steph rolled her eyes and answered, “Nate?”

The Firebird hit the shoulder of the road hard, jarring Matthew as he clutched tight to the phone and shot his brother another menacing look. “Stephanie! It’s me!”

Steph’s heart began to race. On one hand, she was overjoyed to finally hear his voice again. On the other, she could tell something was up. “Matthew? What’s wrong?”

“Everything, Steph, everything is wrong, and it’s all my fault!”

Distantly, carried away by the rush of wind, Nate shouted, “You can say that again!”

Suddenly Stephanie was even more terrified than before. “Matthew, what’s happening? What’s that noise?” She listened more closely and felt her heart drop. “Is that the EMF reader? Is the ghost back?”

Matt actually laughed, half delirious from fright and relief. Nate cast him a worried glance as Matt started to babble into the phone, “Stephanie - I love you. I love you so much! I love your sense of humor. I love your smile, your laughter, your brilliant, brilliant mind! I love that you looked at a nerd like me and thought - God knows why - that I deserved to be in your life forever!”

Steph glanced around at the others as she listened to Matt. Worry settled heavy on her shoulders and just kept pulling down. “Matthew-”

_ “I just - I needed to apologize, Stephanie. I needed to say, out loud, for the whole world to hear that you are my best friend! That I’ve never loved anyone as much as I’ve loved you! That you inspire me everyday to be a better person, to be kinder, to work harder.” _

Nate watched the road behind them where the ghost car was still chasing them, and something nagged at him. It hadn’t tried anything tricky for a while now. What was it thinking?

Was this half-cocked matchmaking plan of his actually working?

Matt kept talking, “And I know I’ve betrayed you, and I know I’ve hurt you, and I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but Stephanie, I can’t live without you!”

“No kidding,” Nate muttered.

Matt was shaking now, whether from the relief of finally saying it all, getting it off his chest, or the literal omen of death chasing them down. He didn’t care. He only cared that she hadn’t hung up on him yet. “I can’t keep living with this distance between us, with this animosity! I miss you, Stephanie. I miss you more than I can bear! Please, please, I’m begging you, let me fix this! Let me make this right! Just tell me what I need to do, I’ll do it! I’ll do it a hundred times over, I swear, I will! Please, just come back to me, Stephanie! I need you. I need you so much I think it might kill me.”

The ghost car tapped their bumper again, and Nate pressed the gas to the floor. “That’s not the only thing that might kill you! Now would you speed this up a little, Romeo?”

Steph, laughing a little and crying even more, wiped tears from her face with one hand and clung tight to the phone with the other. “Really, Matthew, what’s going on?”

Matt and Nate shared a glance, and Matthew asked, “Honestly?”

Stephanie leaned against the bar to steady herself. “Honestly.”

Matt looked into the rear-view mirror, into the glow of the headlights of this hellish roadhog. “Um, the ghost is trying to kill us because it thinks I’ve been unfaithful to you.”

Stephanie was silent for a moment, and Matt checked to make sure their call hadn’t been dropped before she screeched, “ _ What _ ?!”

“I know, that kind of takes the heart out of my apology, but I swear I meant it-”

“Matthew, shut up!” Ro and Jonathan looked up at her as Stephanie wound her fingers through her long brown hair. “What do you mean the ghost is trying to  _ kill you _ ?!”

“Oh, yeah, it’s been trying to run us off the road.” Matt winced as they hit a pothole and the whole car seemed to lift off the ground before slamming back down again. “Of course, we haven’t exactly been on the road the whole time either.”

Suddenly the ghost car appeared right in front of them, the headlights filling up the cab of the Firebird, and Nate screamed and swerved wild to avoid hitting it head-on. They spun to another painful stop. Nate, his head pounding and spinning, reached for Matt. “Are you…?”

“Not dead,” Matt groaned. “Yet.” Then he realized that he’d dropped the phone where it joined his own underneath the seat. He dove down to retrieve it as Stephanie called for him, her voice drowned out by the ghost car’s next approach. “Steph - we’re okay! It’s just-”

Nate tried to shift gears, but the clutch wasn’t working. He hissed and glanced up at the car that was gunning right for them. “No! No, no, no, no… Come on, baby, please!” Matt watched him struggle helplessly, and he noticed that they weren’t far from the cliff now. “If you broke my car you son of a - I swear I will personally send you back to hell!”

Matt dug the matchsticks out of his pocket and stared down at them in his palm. Nate looked up at him, reading his mind and not liking what he was seeing behind those stupid hazel eyes. “Don’t you dare get any ideas.”

But by that time, Matt had thrown off his seatbelt and leaped over the door and out of the car.

Nate tried to get out after him, held back by his own seatbelt that he fumbled to remove. “Matt! Matt get back here!” Seeing the ghost car in the distance, Nate went back to trying to get the Firebird to shift gears. From underneath the seat, he could hear Stephanie’s voice.

_ “Nate? Nate! What’s going on?” _

“Your husband who loves you very much is a freaking moron!” he shouted, his voice raising in pitch to four year-old child levels of desperation.

Matt hit his knees as he skidded to a stop at the edge of the cliff, pulling out a match and striking it against the box until it lit. Illuminated from behind by the glow of those wretched headlights, he dropped the match down onto the pile of cars, “This is for doubting how much I love my wife!” And as it caught ablaze, he turned just in time to see the car roaring towards him. He had no time to move out of the way.

Suddenly Nate got the Firebird into gear, and it sprang forward enough to smash into the ghost car, sending both vehicles spinning off course. The Firebird stopped just shy of the drop off, back tires hugging the very edge of the cliff, and Nate - once his eyes stopped bouncing around in his skull - scanned the clearing for his brother until he saw him.

“Matthew!”

Matt was curled up on the ground in shock, sitting up slowly as the flames blazed below him. “Did that actually work?”

In answer, the car reappeared, and Nate, breathing hard, shook his head, “Only if your intention was to piss it off, then yes, it worked like a dream, genius! Get back in the car, now!”

Steph started for the door without hesitation. It was Jonathan that put out an arm to stop her. “Whoa, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to save my idiot husband and his idiot brother before they both get themselves killed!” She ducked under his arm and kept heading for the door.

Jonathan’s next question stopped her short, though. “By doing what? If they already tried salting and burning the car, what else can we do?”

“I don’t know…” Steph turned back to Jonathan. “There has to be something! You’re the expert here!”

“But I told you, hunting isn’t an exact science!” Jonathan pulled his journal from his bag, stashed behind the bar for safe-keeping, and he dropped it onto the counter. “You can add two and two and still get five every time!”

Steph stared at the journal as a memory dawned on her.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “What? What are you thinking?”

“My husband really is an idiot - a lovable idiot, but still.” Stephanie looked Jonathan in the eyes. “This car, the one chasing them right now? It’s not the Imperial!” She looked to Ro who didn’t seem convinced. “The Imperial crashed because  _ someone  _ cut its brake lines, and Earl was an adulterer himself. Why would he be punishing people for the same thing that he died for?”

Jonathan’s eyes widened as he combed a hand through his hair. “It isn’t Earl. It’s the wife!”

Ro pressed her fingers to her temples. “Well, it does take two to tango.”

“In this case, three. Jimmy!” Stephanie turned on her heel, looking to where Jimmy sat in his usual place. It really was like he lived there. “You said you knew who the Imperial belonged to.”

“All I know is who used it all the time,” Jimmy admitted with a shrug. “And that Doris certainly wasn’t the one Earl went home to every night, that’s for sure.”

Jonathan took a few steps closer, his heart pounding. “Where’s his wife?”

“Dead,” Jimmy told them. “She’s been dead for thirty years.”

And Stephanie spun back to the other two triumphantly.

“So, how do we find her?” Ro asked as Stephanie crossed the room back to the bar.

“We don’t.” She picked up Jonathan’s notebook and turned back to the page she’d read from that day in the motel. “We bring her to us.”

  
  


Nate skidded the car back onto the road again, checked the fuel gauge, and found it dangerously close to empty. They couldn’t keep this up much longer. “I am getting  _ really  _ freaking sick of this game of high stakes bumper cars!”

Matt, ignoring him, finally managed to fish his and Nate’s phones out from under the seats, his head hitting the underside of the glove box as they bounced around again. He rubbed the sore spot and pressed Nate’s phone to his ear again. “Steph? Are you still there?”

_ “Matthew! We’re headed to the cliff. Lead it back that way!” _

Nate scrubbed at his hair and leaned over to shout into the phone, “Yeah, easier said than done, Cordy!”

“Wait,” Matthew said, “what do you mean ‘we’? Are you nuts?”

“Define ‘nut’s.” Stephanie sat in the backseat of Jimmy’s truck as they sped along the road to the cliffside. Jonathan flipped furiously through the pages of his journal in search of the right spell while Ro held the flashlight of her phone just right so he could see. “We have a plan! Just get back there, and I promise this will work!”

The phone call turned to static, and Stephanie swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Matthew? Hello?” When he didn’t answer, Steph leaned forward so Jimmy could hear her. “Can’t you make this thing go any faster?”

Scanning the page under Ro’s flashlight, Jonathan tapped Stephanie’s arm. “I’ve got it. I think this is the spell that we need! But - I’ve never done this before, Steph. I don’t know how this is going to go.”

Steph started reading over his shoulder and gasped, “That’s Latin! I know Latin!”

Ro tilted her head to the side around Jonathan. “You know  _ Latin _ ?”

Jonathan shrugged as if this should be common knowledge by now. “Of course she knows Latin, Stephanie knows everything.” Smirking, Jonathan flinched back as Ro hit his shoulder with one small fist.

Ignoring them both, Steph took the journal and started skimming over the spell. She understood the gist of it, she thought, but she’d never attempted anything remotely like this before. And her husband’s life was on the line - again - no less.

She started reading aloud.

Then the truck broke through the trees into the clearing near the cliff, and Jonathan spotted two sets of headlights in the distance. “Here they come!”

The Firebird screeched to a stop nearby, and Nate and Matt scrambled out, rushing for the truck as Jonathan, Steph, and Ro jumped down from the backseat. Stephanie was still reading the spell as the ghost car turned in their direction.

Nate huffed, doubled over with his hands on his knees, which shook violently and felt like jello. “Can you believe the mileage on this thing?”

When she finished, Steph looked up, but nothing happened. They all looked around. Ro frowned. “Is that it? That didn’t do anything!”

Steph scanned the page again to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. “No, no, no! I must’ve read something wrong!”

Matt rushed to her, taking her shoulders in his hands as he stood behind her and read over the page. “There, that part at the very top!  _ ‘Simul _ ,’ what does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Steph muttered, wracking her brain, but with the car looming like it was waiting for something, she couldn’t get her mind to work.

“Maybe it’s an ingredient?” Jonathan suggested.

“Or maybe an instruction,” Ro added.

Nate scratched his head. “Sounds like the start of the word ‘simultaneous’ to me.” They all looked at him, and he shrugged, pouting a bit that seemed shocked. “Hey, I translate song lyrics all the time, don’t look so surprised!”

But Matt just nodded. “It makes sense. Maybe we have to read the spell together?” They shared the book between them, each holding a side of it. Stephanie nodded and Matthew wrapped one arm tight around her waist as she coached him through the reading. The ghost car revved again unhappily, but it seemed almost frozen in place. A collective held breath pulled the air tight around them all as they waited.

“Maybe you could pick up the pace a little?” Jonathan was starting to fidget.

Nate rolled one finger through the air at them. “Yeah, uh,  _ ándale _ , guys.”

“ _Sbrigati_!” Jonathan added emphatically.

Ro blinked at him in surprise. " _Tu parli italiano?_ "

Jonathan just shrugged and gave a bashful smile as he said in halting Italian, " _Solo un po ', e non così bene come te._ "

As Nate looked back and forth between the two of them, Ro seemed flattered by whatever Jonathan had said, and it made Nate feel like he was going even more insane than usual. "Hey, lovebirds! Focus on this issue at hand maybe?"

As if on cue, the Imperial itself flickered into view between their group and the other ghost car. When it did, two people got out of the cars, a woman and a man.

The man, Earl, looked across the clearing with sorrow in his eyes. “Mallory…”

“How could you do this to me, Earl?” the woman called back to him, her hair billowing in the breeze coming down off the mountains, shining in the moonlight. “How could you do this to us?”

“Mallory, I’m sorry!” he begged her. “I loved you, I did, I just-”

Mallory flickered and crackled with anger, her eyes pinpoints of light in the darkness. “If you loved me, you would’ve been faithful!”

Static popped in the air between them. “It was a mistake! But you didn’t have to kill me over it!”

“Well, you didn’t have to cheat on me with my own sister!” Mallory cried, and the whole gang audibly cringed. “You deserved it,” she screamed, “You did this to us!” Suddenly she charged at Earl, and the ghosts collided in a flash of light that buzzed and fizzed like radio static, consuming the whole clearing before it burst like a bubble and disappeared.

Uncovering their eyes and looking around, the group realized that the ghosts and the cars were all gone. Stephanie sighed with relief, leaning back against Matthew who dropped his head forward onto her shoulder, and Nate, dropping to his knees and then down onto his back in the dust, muttered, “He really was a son of a ditch.”


	9. Going My Way?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short but hopefully very satisfying chapter to end off the week. I can't believe we're already almost done with Blacktop, and that means soon we'll be moving on to "Survive the Night" (which is gunna be buckets of fun) but also look forward to some one shots next week!

The Roadhouse Desert  
March, 2011

The next morning, the sky over the desert was overcast, a blanket of gray clouds that dulled the heat just a little. Each sipping from their thermos filled with coffee, Nate and Jonathan watched as Jimmy and some other hunters hauled car after burnt-up car up the cliffside and onto tow trucks to be taken away and scrapped. By the time they reached the Imperial, Nate had polished off the last of his coffee and stepped up for a closer look.

The car had seen better days, that was for sure. A few decades at the bottom of a cliff, exposed to the elements, with a few more cars piled on top never did any good for anyone. Nate brushed a thumb over the broken hood ornament stand, knocked on the dented hood, and squatted down to look it over.

“You can’t understand just how fortunate you two lovebirds are that you didn’t kill my car,” he hissed like Earl and Mallory’s ghosts might still be able to hear him. He gave the hood another good pat and stood up. “Hey, Jimmy! Take care of those old clunkers. Somebody loved them once.”

Jonathan frowned towards the Imperial. Even though it hadn’t been the one to run him off the road, after all, it was still Earl’s fault that the Penguin Mobile had to be retired. “Yeah, but you can rip this one to shreds.” Nate blinked at him several times, and Jonathan just shrugged. “Hey, these stupid ghosts and their weird, motor-related love triangle killed my car! Aren’t I entitled to a little revenge?”

Shrugging, Nate couldn’t argue with that. He slapped Jonathan on the back and gave him a good-natured shove back towards the Firebird where they climbed inside and headed back to the Roadhouse.

* * *

When the boys arrived back at the bar, it was hopping with activity again. Apparently even rumors of a car-killing ghost couldn’t keep the hunters away from their own haunts for long. Ro was busy behind the bar, and Nate and Jonathan pulled up beside Matt, who was sitting glumly in front of his laptop swapping emails with the insurance agent. Ro slid drinks their way and raised one of her own with a bright smile. “Here’s to a very successful hunt! And Matthew, your first in, what, six years at least?”

Matt gave a somewhat lopsided smile, a little embarrassed by the attention, especially since he didn’t feel like he’d helped out all that much. Mostly he’d just made things difficult there at the end, especially with the demolition derby from Hell. If he’d only talked to Stephanie sooner, hadn’t let all his hurt feelings get in the way...

When Matt didn’t answer Ro, Jonathan drummed his hands on the counter in excitement, trying to lift the mood a bit. “Yeah, how does it feel to be back in the saddle, man?”

But Jonathan’s excitement still didn’t manage to transfer to Matt. Instead, he closed his laptop in frustration - conversing with insurance agents certainly wasn’t going to lighten his bad mood at all - and leaned against the bar. “I’m not ‘back in’ anything. I’m not a hunter. I just - wanted to help, that’s all.”

Noticing the somewhat empty look in his brother’s eyes, Nate twisted the bracelet on his wrist, and Matt noted the fidgeting with the smallest hint of a smile. Nate grinned back. “Well, it was good to have my old partner back.” He knocked shoulders with Jonathan. “The replacement just isn’t as good.”

Jonathan playfully cuffed Nate on the jaw, and Nate poked at Jonathan’s ribs, the two of them grinning and chuckling, thick as thieves. Their playful poking quickly devolved into a shoving match as Matt finished off the last of his Diet Coke, and Ro, cleaning the bar watched him, her eyebrows drawn together in concern.

Even after everything, Matt still looked so tired.

“I think I’m going to head outside for some fresh air,” he said quietly, mostly to the floor, and got up from the bar.

Nate, Jonathan, and Ro watched him with nervous glances back to one another, unsure of what to say or do. Even after last night’s victory, Steph and Matt had been quiet around one another, distant. Matt wanted to blame it on the adrenaline fading from their systems, but when Steph had disappeared first thing that morning before he’d woken up, his hopes had been dashed all over again.

Maybe some things just couldn’t be fixed.

Matthew’s hand had just hit the door when the music in the room changed from the usual hard rock to something infinitely softer and sweeter, something that took Matthew by surprise. The whole atmosphere of the bar seemed to shift, and the raucous laughter and conversations died down. Matt paused. It was a song he recognized - Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “All I Ask of You.” It certainly wasn’t something that a hunter would choose to play.

Those still at the bar all turned to look at the jukebox where Stephanie stood, looking down at the floor.

“About time we had some classy music in this place,” Ro said, clasping her hands together, her eyes already filling up with hopeful tears.

Finally Matthew half-turned to glance at Stephanie as she slowly approached, wearing a beautiful sundress that she smoothed her hands over nervously. In fact, they both looked so hesitant, like they were just kids back in college again meeting for the first time and fumbling over their words.

“A little birdy told me you love musicals,” Stephanie said to the floor still, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. Her cheeks and ears were burning as she tried to take slow, steady breaths.

Matt kept watching her with his forehead wrinkled in confusion, his hands twisting together anxiously, like he half expected her to walk away again at any moment, but finally, he swallowed, nodded a little, and said, “Oh, I’m partial to them.”

Stephanie nodded too, the uncomfortable silence growing between them as the whole room tried very hard not to watch their every move. They certainly had the undivided attention of the three occupants at the bar who were all waiting with their breath held.

“Matthew-”

“Stephanie-”

They started at the same time and laughed at each other, at themselves. Steph curled a strand of her long, brown hair behind her ear and cleared her throat, “I know - I know that technically, you were probably only apologizing because a ghost was trying to kill you, and I don’t think that counts…”

Matt turned to her fully, his face twisted in anguish as if his heart was breaking. As if it hadn’t already shattered a hundred times, a hundred different ways since this all started, but he needed, more than anything, for her to know that it was real, that he meant every word. “Stephanie-”

“But I love you, too.” She slowly, finally looked up at him, her gaze hesitant and searching, and he stared at her, stunned into silence. Tearing up, she continued, “And I’m sorry, too, for - I don’t know. I don’t even know what I was more hurt over, the fact that you didn’t tell me, or the fact that you were right.”

She hugged herself tight, shaking a little as she held back her tears, but even trapped in the back of her throat, they still painted every word she said. “I’m scared, Matthew, more scared than I’ve ever been in my life. And, I never would have thought it would be you that scared me, but you did.” Matt winced, shutting his eyes again and feeling his hands go cold.

Steph pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. Her eyes wandered the room in search an attempt to hold herself together. “And I wasn’t sure what to do. Who could I go to when the one person I wanted to run to was-” Her voice broke, her words catching in her throat.

If he weren’t on the verge of tears before, Matthew was now, and he nodded, glancing away again but still listening. He felt so cold, the sun shining through the window behind him burning at his shoulders. Inside, he was falling through the dark, empty places inside of himself.

Then Stephanie reached forward and took his hands, and the chill began to fade as Matt’s whole body jumped. His gaze snapped back to her in surprise, and he squeezed her hands in his, letting the warmth in her eyes fill up all the empty places Afton had left behind. It felt like, for the first time since he’d been taken, Matt was finally, finally home again.

And Steph, for her part, held on to him tight. “There is no one else I’d rather have by my side to figure all this out, Matthew. It’s always been you, and that’s why it hurt so much.” She took another step towards him and pressed a hand to his cheek, and he leaned into that touch with a deep, shaking breath. Steph gave a broken, heartfelt smile. “I just need something that isn’t… crazy. Different. Dangerous. I just need something that is… us.”

Matt pulled her closer like he might fall over if she weren’t there to support him, and maybe he would. He just knew he needed her there more than ever before. “I can’t protect you from everything, Stephanie, not even the truth, but I swore the day I married you that I would be by your side come hell or high water, til death do us part.”

He shut his eyes, wincing a little as he remembered the burning house, waking up like it had all been a dream only to realize that it was so much worse than that. “I’m not a very good hunter. Heck, I’m barely a hunter at all, but I will always be there for you. I never ever thought you were anything less than the world. That’s why I never told you, but I’m done keeping secrets.”

He lifted his hands and framed her face, finally daring to open his eyes again as he promised her, “One word from you, and I would change the tides.” And he leaned his forehead against hers, cherishing the moment as the music swelled around them and he felt like a few of the broken pieces were finally shifting back into place again after so long.

Then Stephanie, with a soft and lilting voice sang along to the music just for Matthew to hear, “ _Anywhere you go, let me go, too._ ”

And together, swaying back and forth, they sang, “ _That’s all I ask of you._ ”

Choking up, laughing at themselves, they kissed, and the whole room cheered. Nate, Ro, and Jonathan jumping up and hugging one another. And even when Matt and Steph pulled away from the kiss, they never stopped clinging to one another like nothing could ever break them apart - ghosts or monsters, hell or high water.

They would make it, together.


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one was late, I actually forgot what day it was! That aside, enjoy the final chapter of Blacktop Blues!

The Roadhouse  
April, 2011  
One Month Later

Ro had really outdone herself this time. She’d somehow managed to make even the generously rustic interior of the Roadhouse a beautiful place to be, with fresh flowers, white and yellow streamers hanging in twisted streams from the ceiling, and yellow balloons scattered around as well. The bar was filled to the brim with people. Music was playing. The stars were bright outside. It seemed the perfect night for a farewell party.

The happy couple themselves stood near the small stage huddled to one side of the room beneath the large “Home Sweet Home” banner Ro painted herself. Everyone came by to congratulate them, clap them on the back, offer them another drink. Nate and Jonathan stood to the side, watching in amusement as Matt tried to refuse yet another huge glass of beer.

Ro got Jimmy to bring her a chair around behind the bar so she could stand up on it, and as he stood by to support her, Ro knocked a spoon against her glass to get everybody’s attention. “Alright, listen up everybody because we don’t ever get to do something this fancy around here, so allow me to give a toast just once in my life, would you?”

Everyone chuckled, Steph and Matt beaming but embarrassed, knowing they were once again the center of attention for the entire room.

Ro turned towards them, her eyes sparkling with tears as she raised her glass. “Matt, oh Matt. You’re like a brother to me, always have been since we met. You’re so strong and brave and clever, and so talented!” She glanced around to the crowd, eyebrows raised. “Did you guys know he can sing? Really well!”

Matt blushed deeply and shook his head. “Oh, stop!”

“Runs in the family,” Nate added loudly, and more laughter echoed through the building. Matt found his brother near the back of the room quickly, and they swapped beaming smiles as Nate raised his drink towards his brother.

“But not just that,” Ro said, gaining the attention of the room again before she placed her hand over her heart and looked right at Matt. “You’re a good friend, a good man, and a great brother. Anyone would be happy to be under your wing.”

Matt ducked his head then, unable to take anymore as Steph hugged him close. He caught Nate’s gaze again out of the corner of his eye, and still smiling, Nate shrugged his shoulders. Ro wasn’t wrong.

“And to Stephanie!” Ro shouted, raising her glass higher.

Steph all but hid her face in Matthew’s chest as he laughed and turned her back towards the crowd. “Oh God!”

“No - no, I’m going to talk, and you’re gonna listen!” Ro insisted, stamping her foot and nearly losing her balance if Jimmy weren’t there to catch her elbow and right her again. Ro gave him a quick smile and went back to her toast. “Stephanie, you are the most resilient, steadfast, kind-hearted person I’ve ever met, ever!” Tears started to fall down Ro’s face then, and she had to take a pause to brush them away, thankful she was wise enough to choose her water-resistant makeup. “And so delightful! You light up every room you walk into, and everyone here knows it!”

“Here here!” the room shouted in unison, and Stephanie covered her face with her hands.

Ro waved her hand in front of her face, her smile shining. She radiated happiness and warmth as she spoke, “I’m so happy Matt found someone like you to stay by his side. To keep him out of trouble, to keep him focused, and someone to treat you like the treasure and queen that you are.”

Steph laughed as everyone cheered again, and Matt hugged her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“And I know it’s been my pleasure to host you two these last three weeks. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much!” Ro paused a moment, gripping her glass between her hands as she took a deep breath and her wide smile softened to just a rueful smirk. “You’re like family to me - you _are_ family - and you deserve all the good things you’ve worked so hard to give to others.”

Matt and Steph shared a look then and thanked Ro together as they clung to each other, deliriously happy.

“So, it’s with all the love in my heart I got that I congratulate you on finally - _finally_ , finding a new home, where your family can thrive!” Ro laughed as everyone cheered again, toasting with their own drinks as she raised hers once again and gladly took a drink. “Now get out of my house!” Everyone chuckled, especially Matt whose laughter could be heard above all the rest, and Ro turned to hop down before quickly turning back and finishing with, “Next round is on me!”

The whole room shifted towards the bar then as Ro hopped down from her chair. More people crowded around to congratulate Steph and Matt, and Nate glanced at his brother and grinned. “Can’t believe they finally found a place.”

“That little hole-in-the-wall?” Jonathan scoffed. “Rats wouldn’t live there. We’ve lived in better places than that.”

Nate grimaced but kept his smile as he said, “Well, they’re homebodies, and it’s home at least. A little independence can go a long way.” And they did look so happy, he thought, to be able to have even a tiny place they could call their own. As much as they’d loved being with Ro, Nate knew that the Patricks weren’t exactly hunter people. They needed some normalcy, and Nate didn’t envy them that.

Jonathan took another drink as they were being passed around, and Nate could tell he was… off. Watching Jonathan shifting his weight and glancing around, Nate cleared his throat. “You want to get out of here?”

Humored, a little stunned, Jonathan raised an eyebrow at Nate, “What?”

Nate clapped Jonathan on the shoulder, and if Jonathan seemed out of character for not being cheery, Nate was out of character for the opposite reason. “Let’s go somewhere! Get some desert air in our hair, find a real bar, start a fight. I don’t know, _something_.”

Jonathan snorted into his beer. “You’re in a good mood!”

Shrugging, Nate grinned at his partner, and it felt almost like old times again, before that awful month that had sent them both into a steep downward spiral. “Why wouldn’t I be? My head has been clear for a month, those two look like they’ll pull through, they just signed a lease, Afton’s dead and gone…” Nate took a deep breath, tilting his head back. “Everything’s finally turning up roses.”

Nate looked at Matthew and Stephanie again. They were holding onto each other like lifelines in the crowd as Ro spoke animatedly about them stopping the ghost car together, her hands flying everywhere as Matt giggled and Steph smiled up at him. They didn’t look so different from how they were in those wedding photos, Nate thought. Jonathan followed his gaze to the happy couple and wished he felt the same.

“Actually,” he said quietly, “I got a pretty early morning tomorrow.”

Nate felt his heart drop a little, his jaw tighten. Of course, he hadn’t thought Jonathan would hang around forever, but after all, they were still partners. He thought Jonathan would at least ask Nate along, or give him more of a heads-up, before he went out on the road again. “You find a job so soon?”

Jonathan sighed. “Gordon called…” Nate’s smile immediately fell. So that’s why he’d waited so late to tell him - why he hadn’t asked Nate to come along. Jonathan shook his head. “Nate-”

“No, that’s great. I’m happy for you.” He sounded anything but happy about it. Jonathan was surprised he hadn’t popped a blood vessel at first mention of Jonathan’s old mentor. “Go camping with a sociopath. I’m sure nothing will go wrong.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes and tried very hard not to have this argument with Nate, not now. “We’re not going camping. We’re heading to Vegas.”

Nate’s gaze snapped up to Jonathan’s face, but this time it was Jonathan avoiding Nate’s eyes. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together when it came to Vegas. Nate knew exactly why Gordon had called Jonathan. “Oh, nice, Johnny. Just super.” Nate polished off his drink and pushed off the wall, turning to Jonathan and offering his hand. “Have fun. You know, it’s Vegas. Maybe you’ll finally loosen your britches a little.”

“Nate, it’s Gordon.” Jonathan swept a hand through his hair, a little indignant. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this particular argument by a long shot. “He called, and I've got to go. I’ve already put him off a week now.”

They could both argue until they were blue in the face, but Nate didn’t want to argue anymore. He was tired of making people upset, tired of wearing on Jonathan’s nerves in particular. How long had it been since they’d actually gotten along anyway, and not just because there was an emergency? So Nate sincerely offered his hand again. “I know, I know what it means to you. Good luck, and keep me updated, okay?”

Jonathan smiled gratefully and shook Nate’s hand before pulling him into a one-armed hug, slapping him hard on the back. Across the bar, Matt and Steph noticed what felt to them like a good-bye, but they went back to their conversations. When they pulled back, Nate flashed a quick smile before heading back to the bar, and Jonathan watched him go with sorrow in his eyes.

* * *

The couple’s new apartment scarcely had two rooms to its name. Night had fallen by the time they’d settled down, boxes still littering the floor around the living area, open and half-emptied of their contents. There weren’t many boxes to speak of, of course, but the drive had worn Stephanie out. And she’d retreated to bed pretty quickly.

When Matt shuffled out of the bedroom in his pajamas, he found Nate scavenging through one of the boxes. “What are you looking for?” he asked and yawned as he headed for what would generously be called a kitchen.

“Spare AUX cord,” Nate muttered as he continued to search. “I think I left mine at the Roadhouse.”

Matt laughed to himself as he checked through the sparse cupboards for some glasses, but he wasn’t sure they’d even unpacked those yet. “Well, half of your stuff is still there. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“‘Half’?” Nate asked, glancing back over his shoulder at his brother. “How much stuff do you think I’ve got? I travel light.” He gestured at the boxes surrounding him on the floor. “Guess that runs in the family, too.” With another stolen glance over his shoulder, Nate added, “Speaking of the Roadhouse, I - uh - was thinking of staying there for a while, see if Ro will rent me out a room or something, you know, at least when I’m in town.”

Matt hummed absently in response, still digging through what they had already shoved haphazardly into the cabinets.

Nate poked at one of his new bruises, a bit of road rash, kneeling there on the floor still feeling out of place. He fluffed up his hair and turned back to a box, shoulders slouched. “Guess it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll find some place, I always do.”

Finally stumbling across something that was relatively shaped for drinking out of, Matt pulled a pair of plastic cups from the very back of one cabinet. He smiled at them, a little surprised that Steph had thought to pick them out of all their things they’d saved from the old house. Matt leaned against the wall, nostalgia hitting him like a truck.

“Hey, short-stack.” He tossed Nate one of the cups, and catching it, Nate looked down at it.

He could hardly believe what he saw. It was a Pokemon cup with a scene from the game on it, two trainers standing, ready for battle. Along the bottom was a blank space left for a name. It originally had Matt’s name on it in blue marker before that was crossed out, and ‘Nate’ was written above it in green followed by the rest of the phrase, “wants to battle!”

Nate couldn’t help but gawk a little at the old memento. “Son of a gun.” He looked up at Matt who was holding his own cup still. “You still have these?”

Matt walked over to sit on the futon as Nate moved to do the same. He held his cup that had a slightly different scene on it, different Pokemon, different trainers, but they held the same memories. “Snuck them from the house before heading to school. You never noticed?”

“Guess I had other stuff on my mind,” Nate answered softly, ducking his head.

Matt nodded, sadness overwhelming him for a moment before he smiled again. “You remember when I gave you that, and crossed my name out and put yours instead?”

“Uh, yeah?” Nate said, pulling himself out of the swamp of thoughts he’d quickly sunk down into. “It was our first dinner together, the day Dad and I moved in. Ma asked us to set the table, and I was about as useful as trying to eat soup with a butter knife.” He laughed at the thought of it. Nate had never eaten a meal with anything other than plastic forks or spoons, chopsticks maybe.

“That’s accurate,” Matt laughed, remembering Nate’s horror at the sight of all those forks and spoons all in different sizes. “And then you and I kept picking on each other, little kid stuff, and I called for Mom just to mess with you, and you thought you were dead meat!”

“Dude I was terrified! Mary kinda scared me…” Nate rubbed at his hair as blush crept from his cheeks to his ears, feeling stupid about it now remembering the way that Mary had taken him in, just like he was her own.

“Yeah, as far I remember, that never changed,” Matt said as he went back to the kitchen to fill his glass with water. “Anyway, I saw how terrified you looked and decided to give you one of these instead to make you feel better.”

Nate swallowed, his voice low as he spoke, “I’m surprised they still have their color after all this time.”

As Matt returned from the kitchen, he noticed again the bracelet that Nate wore on his wrist, faded and fraying with age, the way he always tugged at it when he was thinking. It made Matt smile. Then tipping his cup, he poured a little of the water from it into Nate’s cup. He offered another toast. “Here’s to the crazy, stupid mess that was the Patrick-Smith household. Hopefully we’ll do better.”

Slowly, Nate smiled again and knocked his cup against Matt’s. They both took a drink and settled into silence as Matt’s eyes started to grow heavy. He was going to crash right there if he didn’t get up soon.

So he slapped Nate’s knee and stood. “This old man is hitting the hay. Don’t be up too late, kiddo, or else Steph will be tripping over you in the morning on her way to work.”

Nate chuckled to himself as he watched Matt make his way to the bedroom door, caught between warring emotions and too many old memories. “First of all, it’s Saturday... At least it was at some point tonight. Second of all,” Nate smacked the cushion he was sitting on and heard the metal springs ring as they vibrated, “it’s a futon. How much sleep do you really think I’m gonna get?”

At the door still, Matt paused and fluffed his hair a little. “Well, you never know ‘til you try.” He cleared his throat, obviously working himself up to saying something, and Nate couldn’t help but prepare himself for the worst. Instead Matt smiled and sleepily said, “And hey, it’s yours for as long as you want it. I can see the... appeal of the Roadhouse over this palace, but we’ll keep a spot open for you from now on, just in case you change your mind.”

Well, it certainly wasn’t what Nate was expecting. Stunned again, Nate smiled and rubbed at the side of his face. “Thanks. I’ll… I’ll let you know.”

Matt, his eyes slipping closed where he stood, gave his brother a lopsided grin and a thumbs-up before waving goodnight and slipping into the bedroom where Nate could already hear Steph was softly snoring. When the door shut behind Matt, Nate looked down at the cup again, rolling his eyes.

“Nate wants to battle, huh… what a stupid nickname.” He shut his own tired eyes, taking another sip of water and sighing contentedly, his dimples poking through as a smile tugged at his lips. The warm feeling in his chest, the idea that he actually might sleep through the night, had to be something like hope.

He opened his eyes and instinctively glanced towards the corner, his smile falling.

The cup dropped to the carpet between his feet, splashing water everywhere.

An empty stare flickering at him from the shadows as her head snapped mechanically from side to side, a little girl stared back at Nate.

It was Charlotte.


End file.
